


It Happens On

by Still_beating_heart



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: But if you can't handle canon themes then don't read this, Death makes risks more real, Derek the wolf helps solve some shit on the sly, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Full Shift Werewolves, Gay Sex, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Heed the chapter warnings my friends, Like Erica and Boyd, M/M, Playing fast and loose with canon rules, Sex, Some background noise from other characters, Some canon deaths apply, breaking up, canon warnings apply, in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:26:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22639198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_beating_heart/pseuds/Still_beating_heart
Summary: I do write happy endings after some pain.----------It happens on a Tuesday.  When Stiles comes bursting into the pack meeting announcing, “they’re killing virgins.”He announces it with a squirm and a blink, wide eyes landing on Derek and he shrugs.  Shoves his hands in his pockets.  Derek can smell it on him.  Ignoring it, or choosing to convince himself it was aimed at one of the girls.It happens on a Thursday.  When Stiles comes bursting into the loft without the pack.  Without Scott.  Without permission, “they’re killing virgins,” with wide eyes, hands flailing out at his sides then being shoved in his pockets.“Yeah.  We know,” it’s not an issue anyone in the pack has to worry their lives over.  It’s just an issue they have to deal with.  And they’re working on it.His ears tint pink and Derek can smell it on him.  He ignores it.  Throws an extra burger on the griddle.----------
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 30
Kudos: 113





	1. A Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a Tuesday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fic in this fandom - I haven't read a whole heck of a lot, but I've read a few that inspired the hell out of me and forced me to start rewatching the show. I'm guessing there's nothing that can be done that hasn't already been done, but this character dynamic has hooked me enough to write it anyway.
> 
> Feel free to let me know if I missed any tags that would be helpful, but keep in mind, I can't control your triggers so take a breath and use some manners :) I would assume that if you watched this show and you're reading this fandom then you're well aware of violence and gore as a running theme. That being said, I don't like to set traps, so if I haven't warned enough, feel free to mention it. I will include chapter warnings when I deem necessary. 
> 
> WARNING: First chapter is going to kick off with some sex, so UNDERAGED Stiles is the major warning for this chapter. He's seventeen but entering this willingly. Or eagerly. And the sex is unprotected.

A Tuesday

It happens on a Tuesday. When Stiles comes bursting into the pack meeting announcing, “they’re killing virgins.”

He announces it with a squirm and a blink, wide eyes landing on Derek and he shrugs. Shoves his hands in his pockets. Derek can smell it on him. Ignoring it, or choosing to convince himself it was aimed at one of the girls. 

It happens on a Thursday. When Stiles comes bursting into the loft without the pack. Without Scott. Without permission, “they’re killing virgins,” with wide eyes, hands flailing out at his sides then being shoved in his pockets.

“Yeah. We know,” it’s not an issue anyone in the pack has to worry their lives over. It’s just an issue they have to deal with. And they’re working on it.

His ears tint pink and Derek can smell it on him. He ignores it. Throws an extra burger on the griddle. 

He doesn’t ask but Stiles stays anyway. He’s strangely quiet. Wandering around the loft. Eyeing anything and everything. Hands brushing long graceful fingers over each surface. There isn’t much. Some books. A single knick-knack that belonged to Derek’s mom. Stiles’ fingers rest on it. For a long moment. And Derek feels his heartbeat fluttering from across the open room. 

He talks with his mouth full of food. And animation that’s always there. But it’s different. Somehow. Nerves that are always there. But different somehow. Derek can smell it. And he chooses to ignore it. 

Derek doesn’t ask him to stay. Doesn’t tell him to leave. 

He raves about the burgers. And chatters his way through washing the dishes. Then he wipes his hands on his pants and his eyes dart up to the bedroom. Derek can smell it on him. It’s getting hard to ignore.

“Goodnight Stiles,” he opens his arm to the door behind him. 

He looks dejected. Rocks on his heels for a moment, eyes Derek but won’t meet his gaze. His cheeks are pink. His ears are red.  
He takes the hint. Leaves without another word.

It happens on a Friday. When he throws the door open. He’s alone. His pulse is racing and he nearly shouts it this time, “they’re killing virgins Derek!” this time the hands flail out, rise up to slide through his hair, get shoved in his pockets as he paces over to nearly break into Dereks personal bubble. Stops just short of it, eyes meeting eyes, and a shaky, “I don’t want to die a virgin. I don't want to die at all. Well, not yet anyway, I’d like to die when I’m eighty. When I get old but not so old that I can’t wipe my own ass anymore. Or maybe eighty-five. But not ninety. Definitely not one hundred. The whole face on the Smuckers jar thing it just…”

“Stiles.”

He’s snapped out of his rambling, eyes shift. Drop to Derek’s lips and a tinge of musk wafts though the air, tingles down Derek’s throat and shifts in his stomach, “I don’t want to die a virgin.”

“Okay, well, I don’t know what to tell you. You can’t pass for me to use my ID as a fake so you’re out of luck for a club hook-up. I can’t teach you how to pick up girls, I don’t think anyone could, so,” he shrugs, “do you want the bite? Is that what you’re after? Think that’ll,” his eyes are locked onto Stiles’ who’s are darting back and forth from Derek’s lips to his throat. Glancing over his eyes. Brown. Like the sweater Derek’s mother was wearing the day she dropped him off at kindergarten for his first day of school. Brown like hot chocolate. Brown like comfort. And warmth. 

Derek’s eyes shift, fall to the floor between them, a sigh, “the bite might…”

“I don’t want the bite. That’s final. I don’t want,” scuffing his foot. Citrus like nerves and steel like determination, “I don’t want the bite. I just want, I want to not die,” he slows it down like he thinks Derek is stupid, “they’re killing the virgins Derek.”

“There are plenty of girls in Beacon Hills. I”m sure there’s one or two of them dorky and desperate enough to…” his sentence is cut off by lips sealing themselves over his. 

It’s been, his eyes flutters shut, it’s been so long. It’s been so long since anyone, but no. No, he’s seventeen. He’s a child. He’s desperate. He’s just trying to stay alive. It’s not about softness. It’s not about gentleness. It’s not about the right things. 

Derek’s hand lands on Stiles’ chest, pushing softly. He could toss him through the wall with one shove if he wanted to. But he’s not that much of a dick, “stop.”

Brown like melting chocolate, sweet, smooth intoxication. Brown like damp tree bark, alive with the promise of Spring. Framed in dark, hypnotizing lashes that shudder against the pale of his skin when he blinks. 

Brown. Sturdy, reliable. Home.

“You’re seventeen. I’m a grown man.”

“A grown man who surrounds himself with teenagers ‘cause he can’t make any friends, he has to bite people so he won’t be alone.”

Low blow. Derek’s eyes fall to the door behind him. His head tilts, jaw clenching.

He’s right. Derek doesn’t want to be alone.

Derek is always alone.

Those eyes that looked like home only a moment ago, they’re flat and cold like the ground six feet under. Something drops in Derek’s stomach, it smells like regret but Stiles won’t say anything. 

It’s regret. Regret for being here. Regret for showing up here. Regret for pressing lips to lips. 

“It’s okay,” Derek mumbles, eyes locked on the door. Head still tilted toward it. He wants it to open. He wants it to open and Stiles to walk out. Walk out like he was never here. Leave Derek alone. He wants him to stay. He wants him to stay because he’s always alone. He’s been alone since the fire. There’s nothing a new pack can do to fix that. 

He doesn’t move. But he doesn’t smell like fear. He’s not afraid to stand up to Derek. Not right now. He can hear his heart beating, he’s holding his breath, gathering strength. 

Derek tried to reject him the nice way, the easy way, that way that should make the most sense. He’s seventeen. And he’s the sheriff’s son. Derek’s already been a wanted man, spent a night in jail because of this kid. He’s a kid. He is a kid.

When Derek was seventeen… his own breath shakes and his eyes force themselves to land on Stiles’, force him back to this. Brown like a warm sweater that she was still wearing when she picked him up at the end of the day. Her hand extended, the sun playing shades on her sweater, on her hair. 

“You’re seventeen,” he repeats it, this time steady and determined.

His nostrils flair barely detectably, “I know.”

Derek can still taste him on his lips. He brushed his teeth before he left home. He drank some water on the ride over here. He drummed on the steering wheel for a good three minutes before he even got out of the Jeep. He got out, he walked to the door, he turned around, he got back in. He drummed the steering wheel. He chewed his thumbnail. He got out, he walked to the door. He stood a the door with his hand balled in a fist, his heart hammering at his chest and his mouth drying with nerves. He turned to walk away. He took a breath, swallowed his heart back into his chest and tossed the door open and came in. 

He kissed Derek. And Derek can still taste him there. He tastes like watermelon, cool and refreshing. He tastes like strawberries, sweet with a hint of tart. He tastes like lust. Lust that isn’t desperation for life. Lust that’s pure. Lust that just needed an excuse for bravery. 

There’s no fear. Not like the fear that used to waft around him when this all started. Fear over having no control. Fear over not being strong enough to make a difference. He couldn’t be a wolf and he didn’t want to be. But he couldn’t stand by and watch death around him.

There’s no fear. There’s nothing off about his scent. His usual nerves like lemons spritzed in a glass of ice water.

The simple and undeniable power of human love. Derek’s human has been telling him no, he’s seventeen, he’s the sheriff’s son, he’s seventeen, he’s Scott’s friend, he’s seventeen, he’s afraid to die. He’s afraid to die. He’s afraid to die alone. 

And Derek’s wolf has been whispering one ridiculous word over and over since he laid his lips over his. One ridiculous word that if Derek would stop denying and ignoring, then it’s the one word his wolf has been whispering since he first looked for too long at Stiles. One word. One word with catastrophic indications. One word with so much meaning and so much truth that it makes Derek weak. If he lets it. Mate. 

Mate. 

Wolves mate for life. 

Stiles is seventeen.

“You’re seventeen,” this time it’s breathy and his body moves towards him. 

“I heard you the first ten times,” his jaw is set in a stubborn line. Something flares across that warm sweater like a spark from a fire in the blackest of nights. Bright and hypnotic. His fingertips skirt across the delicate flesh of his neck, settling against his spine. Stiles’ mouth opens on contact, lips parting just slightly, just enough to slot against. His breath catches on contact. A soft, innocence he hasn’t felt in so long. Maybe not ever. 

It happens on a Friday. It happens with a gentle kiss turning rabid. It happens with a brush of lips turning to desperate tongues. It happens with hands on flesh and the tearing of clothes. It happens with rapid heartbeats and panted breaths. It happens with Derek’s tongue on every inch of bare, pale flesh, glowing luminescence under the beams of moon filtering through the windows with no curtains. It happens with a, “please Derek,” when he hesitates. It happens with Stiles, all long and lean muscles on a growing frame, hands and knees in the center of Derek’s bed. It happens with a gasp and grunt and Derek’s eyes tracing an inky black line up his wrist, ghosting his forearm, and dissipating into the sinew. 

It happens with a soft scent of satisfaction when he presses forward until there’s no further to go. It happens with a soft featherlike feel in the air around them. It happens with Derek’s eyes open and trailing over the dark splotches painted across his white back, under Derek’s hands and beneath his tongue. It happens with the liquidity of two people who are well aware of every single thing happening inside their bodies and minds. It happens with pale fingers clutching sheets and body arching up and back. Asking silently for more. For more. For all of it. 

It happens with a shuddering moan and a shaking of thighs, with Derek’s arm winding around Stiles’ hips to keep him upright. It happens like a wave of pleasure. Quick and sure. With clenching and gripping. With breathless sparks and imploding planets. 

It happens on a Friday. 

When Stiles turns to boneless quivering human in Derek’s grasp, he leans close to his back, letting his sweat glazed skin brush across the expanse of Stiles’ back. Pressing gentle lips quickly to the wings of his shoulder blades. Hand sliding up his sides, one more pulse of black ink racing across the back of his hands when he pulls out slowly. 

He’s seventeen. Of course his orgasms hit quick, are earth-shattering, and leave him useless. Derek smiles in spite of himself, won’t put Stiles through the overstimulated torture of getting off inside of him. Uses a worn t-shirt with only a few blood stains and claw rips in it, to wipe what he can under where Stiles has gone liquid. A soft thrumming content scent of lavender and musk rolling off him. 

He pulls the sheets over his bottom half, letting the breeze from the open window wipe away the remaining sweat on his upper body. 

Finishes himself off with a slick hand in the bathroom, takes one long glimpse at where Stiles is sleeping soundly and heads to the roof. Lying on his back to watch the wispy thin clouds blotting out the stars and moon. 

His human self is going to regret that. Maybe already is. But his wolf is smugly reminding him of that one word. That one word that means a whole lot more than four letters.


	2. A Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a Saturday.

A Saturday

It happens on a Saturday morning. Stiles wakes in the middle of it. The sun telling the loud truths of the day across the loft where he shouldn’t be. But he wants to be. The sun telling the loud truths of all the things still zapping around in his body. Things like pleasure, and content. Things like happy. And a four letter word he won’t acknowledge. 

The sun is telling too many truths and the biggest one being that Derek isn’t there. The sun is proving he slipped out like a coward into the night. That he left Stiles asleep, naked, sweat dried by air instead of hands, instead of mingling with Derek’s sweat and lingering all night long. The truth that Stiles slept here with a pillow under his face smelling like Derek. Like leather, dried blood, and danger. 

The first thing he notices is the lack of soreness. That lack of day-after that everything he read warned of. The lack of anything really. Like the only thing his body felt from all of that was the pleasure. Was the good. Was the addictive sweetness of sex. The mind-boggling, intensity of it. Without the morning after sparks of soreness to leave a lasting reminder that mission was accomplished. Virginity was lost. Life saved. 

He flops to his back. Hoping against everything he’s ever known about Derek that he’ll be here somewhere. That he’s just lurking in a dark corner somewhere, waiting for Stiles to move so he can casually say some kind of overly cool morning greeting. He’s probably already leaning against the doorframe all leather and dark cotton with perfectly styled hair and that perfectly placed stubble and glowing hazel eyes. All dark and brooding with faux confidence and eery stillness. 

From the bed, Stiles can see the entire loft. So unless he’s in the bathroom, then he’s not here. 

“Asshole,” he mutters to himself, peeling his body from the sheets. 

It happens on a Saturday. Insecurity settling around his chest, sinking to his belly. Knowing now instead of just guessing with all the education in the world, knowing that this was a bad idea. That this was a terrible idea. 

He thinks it over in his head, replaying from the instant of lips on lips. Replaying who made what move first. If Derek felt an obligation, if Stiles guilted him into it, or if he wanted it too. When he pulls his t-shirt on, there’s a rip along the collar seam in the back where Derek grabbed it to pull it off his head. The button-up plaid smells like Derek. From where Derek pressed Stiles against his chest. Deep kisses that felt like drowning. Sinking to the bottom only to fight to the surface just to be pulled to the bottom again. Going back for more. It was mutual. 

The whole thing was. It has been from the start. Stiles was in awe, he knew the history of the Hale family, he knew some of the surface of what Derek had been through. He was fascinated with Derek and at first he blamed it on that family history. He blamed it on the wolf, on some kind of wolf spell that was cast on the first full moon after Stiles saw Derek’s glowing red eyes. Like some kind of alpha trick he played, or some kind of illusion that could only be broken by a kiss. Like some stupid fairy tale in reverse. But the kiss didn’t break it. The kiss only deepened it. It only made it course though his veins, his muscles, his bones until every single part of him was screaming for Derek. The feel of his rough yet soft stubble as he worked down Stiles’ spine with his lips, as he nestled his face right down the crack of his ass and his hands, his hands all calloused but gentle, the idea of them, of those hands that could so easily turn, so easily shift into wolf hands, so easily they could tear his ball bag clean off. But they were gentle, tender, massaging as he worked his tongue until Stiles relaxed and he could slide a finger inside, his tongue continuing what Stiles can only describe as pure torturous pleasure. He worked it until there was nothing left to Stiles but a pile of human putty beneath his hands. The moment of penetration was easy, surprisingly easy for… 

That fucking asshole.


	3. A Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a Sunday.

A Sunday

It happens on a Sunday. 

Derek stood in the grocery store for a half hour the day before. He left when the sun was ripping through the curtain of night sky, when the bright beams of gold were replacing the silvery fingers of moon on Stiles’ bare back. On every muscle line and every pronounced bone. He left. He went for a run. And he stopped on the way home for some food. His wolf was telling him to cook steak for breakfast. Or not cook it. Only cook one of them for Stiles. His human was telling him that a growing teenage boy would eat anything for breakfast, including sugary overly sweet and disgusting cereal with decoder rings promised on the box. Or something else now probably. Maybe winning a trip to Disneyland. Either way, it smelled like diabetes. 

So his wolf bought a New York Strip. And his human bought some eggs and bacon. They settled. Derek has always prided himself in settling. He grew up with his wolf, he knew his wolf better than he knew any other human on the planet from the day he was born. He was raised to control it, to harness it, to know the difference between the man and the animal. He’s never been sure if it’s the human or the animal that’s more monstrous. The wolf wants rabbits with their skin still on, the human wants hot chocolate and a warm sweater. The wolf wants wide open spaces and tall grass. The human wants dark corners. But Derek has always maintained control. Always.

It was on a Saturday with the broad light of day announcing itself in every nook and cranny of the loft. It was on a Saturday. And the loft was empty. And Derek cursed himself for allowing a seventeen year old to get in his head, and he cursed his wolf for letting a seventeen year old whisper things like mate. Mate. 

It was on a Saturday that he ate the steak bloody. And stood on the roof throwing eggs at the pavement below. Watching each one splatter and slide across the rough surface on street. Watching each one break, each shell shatter with barely any force at all. 

—————

It happens on a Sunday. 

Derek can hear the heart beating, the rumble of the Jeep’s engine, the slam of the door, the footsteps angry all the way to the door of his place. 

He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t care what’s making that heart beat anger red and hot in his ears. Doesn’t care who Lydia chose over Stiles this time. Doesn’t care if Scott bailed on Stiles for a day with Allison. He doesn’t care.

The human doesn’t care.

The wolf is whimpering. 

He’s standing at the door, arms crossed over his chest, maintaining a cool look of disinterest when Stiles flings it open. Red-faced with anger, eyes burning with old tears and scent that Derek can’t place. Embarrassment? Not quite. He doesn’t care. He can’t care. Stiles left. Stiles is a seventeen year old boy. He got what he wanted from Derek and he left.

It happens on a Sunday. His words exiting his lips like venom, spilling in the air between them with a hot anger and a burning desire to harm, “you took my pain.”

His expression might as well reach out and shove Derek back a few steps, “what?”

“You,” step towards him, “took,” hand out, “my,” slapping his own chest, “pain,” finger jabbing into Derek’s chest, “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

He shrugs, stepping towards him. He can’t show weakness. He can’t show any effect of the tears pin-pricking Stiles’ eyes. 

“You took my pain,” he says it again. Like it’s supposed to mean something. Like it’s supposed to mean that Derek cares. That Derek cares. Cares. 

When he blinks it’s MATE that appears in his closed lids. When they open, it’s Stiles’ face. And before he can tell himself not to, he’s covering the minuscule distance between them and closing his lips over Stiles’. 

He tastes like cocoa with a hint of cinnamon and undertones of lemon waft through the air before they’re interlaced with human musk and desire. Human. He is human. Humans are not mates. Humans are just humans. 

He tastes like innocence. Derek is certain he’s never tasted innocence. Not in Kate. Never in Kate. 

He tastes like hope. His hands have found Derek’s chest, right palm directly over Derek’s heart. Like he’s waiting to either push him off or trying to sync his own rhythm. 

Right hand rising, finding the handle of his jaw, his soft skin where he’s barely begun to grow the traces of facial hair. He’s seventeen. He’s the sheriff’s son. He’s a child. A hopeful, innocent child. 

Pulling back, away from his inviting lips, dropping his hands to his sides, his eyes meet warmth and comfort and home, but he stutters out a weak, “you’re a kid.”

“You tried that excuse already. It didn’t work,” obstinance setting his jaw, eyes maintaining contact and his scent giving the hints of fear mingled with lust. If Derek stopped lying to himself it’s the same scent he’s caught on Stiles for months, “you’re an asshole. Fucking me stupid and then leaving like a coward, what is it Derek? What are you afraid of? Afraid that you like me or that you have a weakness? Are you actually afraid of my dad? Do you really think the only reason I came here was so I wouldn’t die a virgin? I could have,” his cheeks flush now and his eye contact drops, that false confidence fading into that slope of his shoulders and an exhale laced with what is clearly embarrassment now, “okay so maybe I couldn’t have just gone anywhere and had sex with anyone, maybe I’m not good at this stuff and maybe I’m awkward and talk too much and I’m a spazz, and I don’t even have any friends or athletic ability or anything that anyone is attracted to. And you’re Mr Perfect with your wolf genes and your good looks and your pretty eyes and your confidence and your big dick and your perfectly chiseled jawline and your control of everything, you get everything you want don’t you? You get everything with just a well timed smile and maybe a wink, and,” his eyes finally dart back over to meet Derek’s and he stumbles in his narrative, “but you’re alone. Do you like being alone? I don’t even think you like being alone. You’re a pack animal, it’s in your nature but you still brood like a dark handsome bad boy in every teen movie ever made and distance yourself ‘cause you’re afraid. You’re,” his voice drops to a whisper like he’s afraid Derek will rip his throat out with his teeth if he figures him out, “you’re afraid of being alone but you’re afraid to let anyone in. Everyone you let in either dies, tortures you, or leaves you. But if you leave first then you can’t be left behind. Is that why you left the other night you coward? So you could leave first?”

If Derek was giving in to his human he’d be chasing his breath and feeling his heart beating out of control, trying to smash through his ribcage and bleed the truths at Stiles’ feet. If Derek was giving in to his wolf he’d be saying that word, that word that keeps appearing in his eyes and his ears and in the air around Stiles. Instead, he settles, “I went for a run and stopped for breakfast food.”

“What?”

“Teenagers sleep until noon anyway.”

“We do not. We sleep until like 11:30,” there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and the lemon scent is drawing back, pools of melting chocolate landing and staying on Derek’s face, “I thought you left.”

“I gathered that, you know, with that little character study back there.”

“But you just went to get breakfast. For me,” that last part squeaks a little, “is that where all the broken eggs out there came from? Did you drop the whole carton? Did you fall and break,” it trails off. Both of them knowing that wolves don’t drop things, they don’t fall, they’re not clumsy, “I only left,” shoving his hands in his pockets, “‘cause I thought you left. First. I thought you left first,” rocking back on his heels, his eyes are locked onto Derek’s chest now. Unable to rise, unable to fall. 

He feels his own breath catch when Stiles’ does. Arms rising, crossing over his chest. His human is telling him that he needs to leave, that Stiles needs to leave and Derek needs to do whatever he can to make that happen. His wolf wants to shove him against the wall and take everything he’s offering and then some. So he settles for a deep breath, for his mouth opening to tell him to sleep on it, to think this all over, to decide if it’s worth the risk, if it’s worth the sad ending that is imminent because humans can’t be with wolves. 

Before he can get that out, Stiles is rocking back on his heels again, hurrying to the door and flinging it open, “I have an idea. I’ll be back.”

The human wants to say, ‘don’t bother’, the wolf wants to say, ‘never leave,’ but he settles for, “okay,” and remaining exactly where he is. Exactly where he is, listening the footsteps recede, the kid is talking to himself, mumbling things about being an idiot and going about this all wrong and when he gets to his Jeep, there’s the lingering scent of lemon water in the apartment. The distance to his heartbeat isn’t growing, he’s fumbling around looking for something. 

“A-ha,” is the final word he has with himself, but the fumbling about doesn’t stop just yet, Derek is certain he’s always fumbling for something. At least he’s stopped cursing himself out. The heartbeat growing closer, jolting a few times, and then a knock on the door. 

Really? He’s knocking now? 

Derek shakes his head to himself, before he can take a step there’s another knock, “I’m coming,” if he had a deity to pray to he’d be praying for some patience right about now.

The heartbeat picks up pace again, Derek pushes the door open to a Stiles wearing a new shirt with a laptop tucked under his arm, “hey. You busy tonight?” there’s lemon swirling around him, a little thicker than earlier, but not overpowering. And also Axe body spray.

“That on the shirt?”

“What?”

“Body spray.”

“Oh what, you’d rather I rolled in leaves before I stopped over?”

“Yeah. Actually.”

His eyes rolls, he open his mouth, clamps it shut again, starts to turn like he’s actually going to go outside and roll in some dirt. Derek’s hand clamping down on his arm stops him without much force, without any resistance, and pulls him inside. Shoving the door shut behind him, he goes for the shirt immediately.

“Whoa, hold up a minute big fella, rather presumptuous, don’t ya think?”

“What is? That your shirt stinks and it’s going to give me a headache so I’m removing the problem preemptively?”

“Oh,” his cheeks flush pink, “yeah. That,” he hands over his computer, drags the shirt off. Back down to just a plain black t-shirt when he opens the door and tosses the button-up out, “kay, so I was wondering if you’re busy tonight,” reaching for the laptop again, “‘cause I just downloaded The Shining and haven’t watched it yet, well, that’s a lie. I’ve seen it about fifty times, but I haven’t watched it yet on here, and I figured since you grew up out in the woods in a burned out shell of a house that you’d probably never seen a movie before in your life, so if you wanna watch it with me I’d kinda like the company or,” he trails off for a minute, his eyes catch on Derek’s shirt collar and he chews his bottom lip before starting back up with, “I don’t get scared of scary movies or anything, but ya know, doesn’t hurt to have a big bad scary alpha werewolf around when it’s dark and Fallish outside and…”

He’s only stopped when Derek stops him, “either come in and shut up or walk out and keep talking.”

“Oh, well, can’t you hear me talking from like a mile away or something? So if I left and kept talking, I could keep talking all night from just down the road and you’d still hear me. Isn’t it just easier to…”

His hand clamps down on Stiles’ face, squeezing gently against his cheeks to stop his word-flow, “take off your shoes. Sit on the couch. And get your movie started.”

He waits until he nods to release his face, part of him not wanting to. Not wanting to release it at all tonight, maybe ever, but he does. And he doesn’t let his hand fall across his chest where his heart is fluttering like a butterfly on adderall. 

“How much caffeine did you have today?”

He’s kicking off his sneakers, leaving them wherever he steps out of them instead of placing them nicely on the mat. A shrug, narrowed eyes, “none. A little. Fine. A lot. I had a lot. For some reason I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, it was almost like I had great sex the night before, woke up alone, and thought I did something wrong. Turns out, I only did something wrong after I woke up and left because I thought he left and…”

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?” eyebrows raises, lips pursed, waiting. 

“Sit down. Start your movie. Stop talking.”

“Okay,” resigned sigh, he plops down on the couch, sets the computer up and rubs his hands together, but he doesn’t shut up. He’s going on about Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick and Derek thinks it’s adorable that he thinks Derek’s been living in a burned out shell of a house for his entire life. That house used to have a family in it. A typical, average family with average problems but abundant warmth and love. A typical, average family with typical, average wolf problems. 

Home. When Derek thinks of home, he thinks of his mom’s brown sweater. When Derek looks at Stiles’ eyes as he’s popping popcorn over the stove, he thinks of his mom’s brown sweater and his wolf is crying that four letter word that it won’t shut up about. 

—————

It happens on a Sunday. It happens when Stiles’ head gets too heavy to hold up anymore. When it falls against Derek’s shoulder on the couch. When the movie is only half over. When the popcorn is mostly eaten and the scent of lemon is gone. When he smells like lavender and gentle vanilla. 

It happens on a Sunday. When Derek’s human is still telling him this is a bad idea. When he’s pulling the blanket off the back of the couch to wrap around him. When he’s not getting up even though he should. 

It happens on a Sunday. When Derek’s wolf is turning his head. Resting his nose against Stiles’ hair and taking a deep breath. When his eyes close and that damn obsessed wolf is writing ‘mate’ in the black of his lids. 

It happens on a Sunday when Derek settles somewhere between the two. When he settles with his cheek against Stiles’ head and his heart beating a slow, steady rhythm. When he settles on the couch and watches the rest of his damn movie. When he settles into Stiles’ warmth and comfort like a soft brown sweater and home.


	4. An Eighteenth Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on an eighteenth birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Knotting as a subject of fascination comes up in this chapter, but I'm (k)not actually going to write it.

An Eighteenth Birthday

It happens on an eighteenth birthday. On his eighteenth birthday. On Stiles’ eighteenth birthday. 

He lets himself into the loft without knocking, without calling, without announcing himself. He knows the beating of his heart and the rumble of the Jeep’s engine already did that. 

“Derek Hale,” he hollers when he doesn’t see him right away in all his brooding darkness and perfect cheekbones, “you’re all out of excuses big bad wolf. Little Red Riding Hood is eighteen. Wait, no, that sounded, just not right. That sounded not right at all. Derek Hale, you’re all out of excuses, I’m eighteen and…”

“Still the Sheriff’s son.”

Even though Stiles knew he was in here, the actual presence of him is startling. All brooding dark colors and perfect stubble that Stiles has felt on his cheeks multiple times now. It’s not a weird thing to sleep here on weekends, sometimes weeknights. With his dad thinking he’s at Scott’s and Scott thinking he’s at, actually he has no idea where Scott thinks he is. Can Scott smell Derek on Stiles? Does Scott know? And he’s just saving them the embarrassment of having a chat about it when it’s already probably pretty obvious and that’s not the point, “always will be, but I’m eighteen, he can’t really do anything about it legally so,” he leans his back against the edge of the door, watching Derek all wolf grace beauty stalking across the open space until he’s close. So close that Stiles wants to close his eyes and just breathe. Breathe in that open air smell that’s always around him. 

“It’s a full moon.”

“And?” he’s kicking his shoes off.

“Control is different on a full moon.”

“Need to get angry first? Isn’t that your anchor?”

“Anchors are strong. Anger is strong. Wolves are strong.”

“Okay, and humans are weak and happiness is weak and storms are stronger than anchors and,” suddenly he takes a deep breath while a realization hits, “love is weak,” watching Derek’s eyes lock onto his lips. Refusing to rise, “okay, so not love then. That’s fine. You know I’ve been broken-hearted plenty before,” his hand rises to brush it off in the air between them, instead it’s grabbed and his words falter, heart lurches.

“Full moons are strong. And I don’t trust myself around you right now.”

“Trust your wolf or trust your human? ‘Cause they’re just the same thing Derek. You can pretend your wolf doesn’t like me or the way I smell or whatever, and you can pretend your human doesn’t like me and the way I always fumble and fail and…”

“You don’t.”

“Yeah I do, this isn’t about me. This is about you, and your control. Are you saying that you don’t trust yourself not to shift if we have sex right now? What would happen if you did? Would you rip my throat out with your teeth? Would bloodlust take over? Would…”

“Mate,” he says it, clears his throat, drops Stiles’ hand where it was still locked in the space between them. He turns, stalks off. Stiles watches him walk away, takes just a quick second, just a tiny second to appreciate the view before he follows.

“Mate like want to have puppies, ‘cause I mean, that’s really not important. You can’t knock me up and what’s that urge anyway? To feel skin on skin, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’ve only been with you and you can’t get human STDs so it’s not like,” he stumbles over the ledge on the way out to the balcony where Derek is all silence and stillness in the glow of the moon. The full moon, “or mate like knot? Is that for real? Is that a real thing? How does that even work? You’re human has just a regular old dick and if you shift durning sex it turns into werewolf dick or what? Not that it’s just a regular old,” he can feel the blush rising, he could probably fit more of his foot in his mouth if he tried and clearly Derek doesn’t want to talk about any of this, “it is knot a problem. I mean, either way,” he stops talking long enough to look at Derek’s eyes reflecting the moon back at him. And shrugs, “it is knot something I’ll freak out over.”

“You are,” his eyes close, roll beneath his lids, mouth clamps shut before it opens and his eyes flash a red warning that doesn’t make Stiles jump back. Not at all, “not getting it,” when his jaw clenches his chiseled features are just that much more prominent and Stiles wants to rub his face all over Derek’s and nuzzle into him until he gives it all up, “wolves mate for life.”

“So? They also only live like ten years.”

He gives Stiles that look like he’s the biggest moron in a line-up of morons, “you’re seventeen. Life is long.”

“I’m eighteen as of a few hours ago, thank you very much, and oh. Oh. Oh, you wanna mate for life and I’m just a dumb teenager.”

His jaw clenches again like he wants to bite his own tongue off for saying any of the things he already said tonight. Arms crossed over his chest, the muscles lined in silver light and yeah, that’s another thing he’s got going for him. Those thick arms that aren’t so thick he looks like a meat-head but they’re so thick they could break a human in half. 

“Or do you think that I could knot handle it?” every time he says knot, he feels his eyebrows wiggle and his voice emphasizes the hell out of that one word. Not that he wants a giant werewolf dick in his ass, he’s not even certain how a normal dick feels after Derek decided to take the edge of pain away so that all he got out of it was the pleasure and he’s not sure why he’s mad about that, but he’s still kind of mad about it. Like Derek maybe ruined it for anyone else ‘cause if he went and got fucked up the ass by someone else then it would probably hurt and he’d expect it not to after being with Derek even though he’s packin’ enough that it should hurt, but then again, he really broke trail with his tongue and his fingers and he really laid the ground work, and that foundation was so solid that Stiles was ready to bust a nut before he even made the final lap and now that he’s thinking about it again (not that he doesn’t think about it all the damn time and then think about it some more) but now that he’s thinking about that part specifically he’s pretty certain he, as in Derek, never finished last time. Or didn’t finish inside Stiles. He certainly doesn’t remember a condom, “you already knew that about the STDs so the whole skin on skin thing isn’t a thing,” and now he kind of wants to see if he can rip Derek’s throat out with his teeth for all the things he did wrong last time that were so right because he was looking out for Stiles but it’s not fair for anyone else who ever goes there so maybe Derek was mating him even then, which was like six months ago. So the very first time, “you didn’t come. Why?”

His eyes dart over to meet Stiles’, then flit away again, “you did. And I wasn’t going to rub you raw.”

“Uh, you already took that option off the table with the whole pain thievery.”

“Pain thievery? You want the pain?”

“Maybe,” it squeaks and Stiles realizes he’s not sure about it, and when he thinks about it with anyone else he is sure that the doesn’t want pain to be involved in sex but with Derek it feels like he wants it all. He wants all of it and then some, and when he’s whimpering from pain is when he wants Derek to take the edge off, or maybe not, or maybe he can just trust that Derek was doing that just to get him over the edge and he knew better that it would hurt too much to be worth it if he didn’t take some of it and maybe he knows Stiles’ body better than he knows it himself, or maybe he just is very aware of human anatomy and…

“You sound like a traffic jam.”

“What?”

“Overheated engines, honking horns, and chaos in the standing still.”

“If this whole werewolf saving Beacon Hills, chasing supernatural beasts, and stopping plagues or whatever doesn’t work out for you, you should be a doctor.”

“A doctor?”

“Like diagnostics or something. If you can smell cancer and death and anxiety and traffic jams, then you’d be able to diagnose things without machines if you knew each thing smelled like. It’d save the system a lot of money on equipment and save the patient a bunch of time laying in an MRI and I’d freak the hell out if I never had to have one of those, oh,” his body is shuddering just thinking about it, “my,” sliding through his core like something is crawling up his back and shaking it out his arms, “god.”

“You don’t have cancer. Or pulled muscles or ripped ligaments. All you have is lemons.”

“Lemons?”

“Anxiety.”

“Feels like acid in my body and tastes like oxidized pennies in my mouth.”

“Exactly that.”

“Do you taste that? When you kiss me? Do you taste rusty pennies?”

“Sometimes,” he shrugs, “but only for the first instant.”

“You thief! You take that too? Your magical wolfy powers steal anxiety too?!”

“No,” dark brows dipping, eyes narrowing. There’s that look again, like Stiles is the biggest moron in an entire line-up of the world’s biggest morons, “that’s a human response to a calming touch. Might spike the anxiety at first, wind it up like barbed wire around your windpipe for just a second.”

“And then it unwinds when I realize I have no reason to be sounding like a traffic jam.”

“Nailed it,” there’s a half smile, not a smirk, nothing smarmy like he is sometimes, just a half-smile. 

“So I have no reason to be sounding like a traffic jam right now? It’s just the full moon?”

“And your human nature.”

“And your wolfy nature.”

He shrugs, his arms are loosening across his chest, but he’s holding that stock still pose and unaffected expression. It’s such a damn lie.

“So, um, when did you smell it, ya know, the attraction to you on me?”

“Uh, immediately.”

“What? Uh uh, no way, there’s no way, I wasn’t even attracted to you right away, I just thought you were a dick and mostly scary and…”

“You still think that.”

“No, I don’t, I don’t really. Well, sorta, but not really. Not like all the time, only some of the time.”

“Like when I’m biting teenagers and then getting them killed.”

“Well, there’s that,” he reaches out now and gives him a playful shove, knowing it’s a painful experience and if Derek knew, if he knew ahead of time that it would get anyone killed in a turf war with alphas, he wouldn’t have dragged them into it. But he didn’t really drag them into it, he gave them the information he had, he let them choose. He didn’t know about the alphas anymore than just a knowledge of their existence, not that they would show up. He didn’t know that part, “so is it really a gift? Power, physical ability, mental strength, emotional, um nothingness,” he tries an ‘I’m kidding’ smile, but it doesn’t work.

Not really. Derek’s crossed arms cross tighter and goddamn those muscles, but his eyes drop to Stiles’ bare feet on the balcony that should probably not be bare out here and he’s almost going to say that instead and change the subject but he doesn’t, “I feel a lot of things Stiles. I just know how to control them.”

“What do you,” he takes the chance to step closer, to edge up to Derek’s bubble but not burst though it, “feel right now?”

His eyes dart to meet Stiles’, and flash of fear explodes in the air between them. Fear. Imagine that. Big, bad wolfy Derek Hale, alpha red eyes and all that, is afraid. Of Stiles. Of all the things in the world. He’s afraid of Stiles. 

It happens on a full moon. In the glow of the eery silver beams on the loft balcony. It happens then, on Stiles’ eighteenth birthday. And it just so happens to be the most amazing kiss Stiles has ever had. Not that he’s had much, but, well, he’s had a lot of kisses from Derek. With his stubble and his soft lips and his warm mouth that always tastes strangely like chocolate even though Stiles is certain the guy has never eaten chocolate before in his life. He’s had a lot of kisses with Derek because apparently kisses with the Sheriff’s underaged son that lead to blow jobs from Derek to Stiles and never vice versa ‘cause maybe in Derek’s mind Stiles sucking Derek’s dick would break the law but Derek sucking Stiles’ dick doesn’t. But either way, he’s had a lot of kisses from Derek, and tonight it’s more. 

It’s bloodlust without the blood. It’s chasing the taste around every nook and cranny of Stiles’ mouth. It’s intoxicating and world-tilting and sweet. It’s sweet. And it’s desperate and his hands on Stiles’ back are demanding without being demanding because he’s in control, his human is in control even if his wolf is wanting to go wild and mate and do all kinds of weird things that aren’t weird at all. But his human is in control when his lips travel to the handle of Stiles’ jaw and his hands lift his shirt over his head. When his fingers slide over bare flesh and his lips travel down his neck, lingering over his Adam’s apple as it bobs with a hard swallow. Stiles doesn’t think he means to, but he tilts his head back, offering his full neck, to a werewolf. That’s intelligent. Or it’s blind trust. Or it’s knowing Derek is in control.

Derek is in control when he starts walking into Stiles and guides him backwards into the loft. Not stopping until his ankles are against the mattress with no bed frame. His hands, Derek’s human hands are on his belt and if Stiles wasn’t sex-stupid already he’d be helping, or removing Derek’s shirt. Removing Derek’s shirt. That sounds, that sounds amazing. Too bad his fingers get locked into his hair when he drops to his knees and starts on that painfully euphoric sucking that doesn’t take long to make Stiles’ toes curl and a gasping, “wait,” ‘cause he wants to last, or something, something to bring on sex. Actual sex. No more of this dick-sucking and then passing out with Derek probably still sporting wood, or does he jerk himself off? Is that what’s been happening? Is Stiles really that stupid and unaware in his teen brain when his orgasm hits that he has no idea of his surroundings? Jesus, maybe. Damn, “Derek,” it croaks out of his mouth but it doesn’t stop. The aching pressure of his mouth suctioned to his dick and his fingers rolling over his balls, reaching for his ass, sliding along his skin and coming to a rest there. 

And that’s all it takes. Show’s over folks. Cum is spilled. And swallowed. And the game is over. And Stiles’ brain does, in fact, short out enough to be completely unaware of literally every single thing in the loft. Completely unaware of Derek maneuvering him onto the mattress, tugging his pants off his ankles, folding his legs up towards his chest and oh, yeah, holy shit, he’s totally aware of what his tongue is doing. What Derek’s tongue is doing. And he’s totally aware of the sound of the lube cap and he’s totally aware of Derek’s fingers and how his dick is right back to hard just like that. And how Derek is still fully dressed and Stiles is completely naked and how he can’t get a single word out of his mouth and he’s not even sure if his eyes are open or closed, or if his heart is still beating, or if his breath is still exiting. So maybe not fully aware of everything. But fully aware of the important things. And Derek doesn’t stop until another ball of orgasm is twitching in his belly and rolling towards his dick that’s just lying there untouched while Derek works over everything else and, “wait,” again and, “Derek,” again and he sounds kind of pathetic but he has no control over that. Derek though, Derek has control.

He has control of his wolf and his world and Stiles. He has so much control over Stiles that it should freak him out but it’s not. It’s not freaking him out and the fact that it’s not freaking him out is kind of freaking him out and now, finally, now Derek’s head rises, “you okay?”

“Yeah. No. Yeah. Just, Derek, I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me until I come again, and if you haven’t then I want you to keep fucking me until you do even if it’s too much because it’s not going to be too much, I know you’re not going to let it be too much. And I want that. I want all of that. And I know it’ll probably be sore tomorrow but I don’t care, I want that. I want to feel it. I want you to let me feel it. Unless…”

He covers Stiles’ still moving mouth with his own. And somewhere along the way he lost his clothes. Somewhere. Somehow. Without Stiles noticing. Could a gargoyle come swooping in the window right now and Stiles wouldn’t notice? Probably. Probably, because Derek’s lips are on his and his body is perched over him, between his legs and he’s slowly, in very measured and controlled movements, starting to allow more pressure on Stiles. More body weight, more kisses that are burning deeper and swallowing more lemons and rusty pennies and turning them into fresh-cut grass and the smell of rain on the warm summer breeze and maybe roses or lilacs or something. He’ll have to ask when this is all over. 

Or maybe he’ll have to not ask, because Derek whispers, “home,” against his lips when he stops for air, for just long enough to get some breath to his lungs before he starts up again, chasing tastes around Stiles’ mouth and chasing goosebumps up his sides and across his thighs when he tilts him to get the right angle. Chasing a searing, burning ache when he pushes his very human dick into Stiles’ body very slowly. 

His lips leave when Stiles gasps, and his body ceases moving, “don’t take it,” Stiles whispers, “don’t take it. I want it.”

His forehead rests against Stiles’ and his exhale wraps around the air between them, his hand sliding underneath Stiles to rest on the small of his back. Rubbing gentle patterns into his flesh. The exhale shudders and he’s not certain what it means, if it means the wolf is rising, or if the human is giving in, or if, “it smells like trust,” or that. And it’s laced with so much awe that Stiles’ heart lurches, thudding hard against his chest and meeting Derek’s like it’s trying to jump out and push itself into Derek’s chest. Live there where it’s easier to control or maybe it’s stronger or it’s safer or it’s, “tell me that this is okay.”

Why? He could smell it if it wasn’t. Or he’d be taking his pain or he’d be, “let me see your hands.”

He repositions himself to kneeling, between Stiles’ legs, a very unimpressed look on his face mingled with a softness in his eyes that gives it all away. But he shows him his hands anyway, lacking inky black lines. Landing on his knees, giving a slow thrust into Stiles’ body while he watches those hands remain free of pain thievery. 

“Okay, okay, I see it, now come back down here,” it shakes a little. His body is trying to figure out how to accommodate a dick in his ass, and his head is trying to figure out how to accommodate some weird feeling he’s never felt before and it’s getting to be too much. But it’s not too much at all. It’s not too much when Derek’s lips are on his and his arms wrap around his body and he pulls him close to his chest so there’s no room for anything but maybe a tiny bit of air between them. It’s not too much when Derek is slow and controlled with every single thrust. 

It happens on an eighteenth birthday. On his eighteenth birthday. Or maybe it’s the day after by now. It happens when Derek's hands are the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely. It happens with lips to lips, bare skin to bare skin, and a stuttering shaking gasp. It happens with trembling legs and quivering insides. It happens with the distinct taste of vanilla on his tongue and so many imploding galaxies in his eyelids with greens, blues, purples, and yellows. It happens across and inside every single cell in his body. 

It happens on an eighteenth birthday. On his eighteenth birthday. And when the supernova clears from his eyelids and his body goes to mush beneath Derek, when his eyes find their way open, the image he sees in Derek’s eyes isn’t a whole hell of a lot different than the, “Supernova 1987A. The power of one hundred million suns. Hubble started observing it in 1990, the last stages of stellar evolution. Scientists are studying how the remnant is actually forging vast amounts of new dust from the new elements created in the progenitor star. A portion of this dust will make its way into interstellar space and may become the building blocks of future stars and planets in another system. These observations also suggest that dust in the early universe likely formed from similar supernova explosions,” his hand somehow manages to rise, landing on Derek’s cheek, thumb sliding over his delicate skin directly beneath his eye, “red novas are stellar explosions thought to be caused by the merging of two stars.”


	5. A Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a full moon.

A Full Moon

It happens on a full moon. While Stiles is still talking. He’s still talking about a supernova and Derek is trying to draw back, quiet that voice in his head that keeps whispering mate. Stiles’ hands have tightened their grip on Derek’s arms as soon as he started to adjust his body weight. 

“Not leaving,” he mentions it softly, in the middle of Stiles’ dialogue. His hands land on Stiles’ hips, his lips brush over his collarbone. And he can’t stop himself, the line of control that he’s always maintained, that narrow line that he’s always walked. He can’t stop it when he nudges away the pain of emptiness, pulling out. HIs lips remain on the white of virgin snow and his hands remain on the smooth softness of the curve of his hips. There’s no end in the talking, not even a hiccup. He’s not noticing. Derek takes a deep breath of relief, lets himself back down over his body to reach for a discarded shirt. One or two rips and maybe a blood stain, it’ll work for a mop. 

Leaning up on his knees, Stiles’ hands falling to his forearms, holding on there as he wipes the streaks off his body. The sun should be jealous. The sun doesn’t get to see things like this. Things that the full moon gets to see. The way the pale glows on pale and the shadows dance and flicker across every dip and indentation of this body. This body that seems to be changing every day. The softness of boyhood dragged to the edges. Cut away by sharp edges of manhood. 

His long legs have fallen open, but remained around Derek’s body. His feet come to rest on Derek’s calves. One of them is irritatingly tapping the rhythm of his voice. There is no lemon in the air. And there wasn’t a hint of brass in his mouth a moment ago when Derek’s lips left his. 

Maybe he should fuck him again so he passes out. He’s almost quiet in his sleep. Quiet enough that Derek can sleep through it. Derek’s gotten used to the sound of traffic jams when Stiles is around. He’s gotten used to the static and humming of technology that he’s always bringing over. He’s gotten used to the scent of lemons and the feeling of home every time he looks long at those eyes. He’s gotten used to the annoying taps and jolted heart beats. He’s gotten used to the extra things lying around, the smelly sneakers, dirty gym bag, and textbooks. He’s gotten used to the dirty dishes being left on the counter and the random assault of questions that he never lets Derek answer. 

And he’s gotten used to the sleeping version of him. The one that sounds more like a babbling brook and wind through green leaves. The stillness of nature. Never still but always calm. He’s gotten used to his sudden twitchy wakings after a nightmare. He’s gotten used to wrapping his arms around him to nudge him back into sleep. He’s gotten used to the feel of his breath tucked into his neck in the mornings. 

And maybe he shouldn’t let himself get used to it. He should never let himself get used to anything good. Anything nice. Anything sweet or gentle or tender. He should never let himself get used to it. It’ll be gone. Humans don’t mate for life. Humans don’t see the world the way wolves do. Humans don’t hear, feel, or see things the way wolves do.

The simple and undeniable power of human love. It’s different. Where the wolf wants to mark him, scent him, mate him. The human wants to hold him. Touch him. Let him think that everything is okay. That everything will always be okay. Tell him that things like hope and innocence can last. The human wants to hold his hand and take him to dinner. 

The wolf wants to build a den, kill a deer and feed him until he’s fat and round. The wolf wants to rip the throat out of anyone that comes near him.

So he settles. Derek settles for lying down next to him, facing him where he’s still sprawled on his back. He settles for laying his fingers over Stiles’ arm. He settles for listening, or hearing, maybe not listening to every word that comes out of his mouth, and smiling every time a yawn interrupts a train of thought and another train jumps the tracks for another thought and eventually the babbling brook and wind through maples is the only sound on the bed. 

The human might be happy with just lying here watching his chest moving up and down. Up and down. But the wolf wants full shift and a long howl. The wolf wants to run through the Preserve and howl on the cliffs, announce he’s mated for life. But the human isn’t dumb enough to believe that.

So he settles. He settles for watching Stiles sleep. For long enough to know an earthquake wouldn’t wake him. Then he climbs out to the roof, tilts his head back and lets the moon draw a low celebratory moan from his throat. 

—————

“I don’t need a boyfriend or someone to take me to prom or pick me up after school,” he’s talking as he’s walking through the door into the loft. Assuming Derek is alone. Which, he is. He’s always alone, “but I kinda want to know,” his backpack gets launched towards the couch. Misses, and slides under it instead, “when all the people that are lined up around the block to ask me to prom do ask me to prom, I wanna know what I should say. Like, sure I’ll go with you but just as friends because I have an alpha wolf that’s going to probably be stalking me all night and watching through the windows of the gym to make sure no handsy business happens and you should probably be aware of that so you don’t get your throat ripped out,” his shoes are being kicked off, “with his teeth,” his face in in Derek’s face. His lips pursed for a kiss that he doesn’t receive immediately so his eyes cross and he starts making sucking noises, the lips turn into fish lips and his hands land on Derek’s chest. Fingers closing around the fabric to tug him in. 

He tastes like Mountain Dew. It makes Derek squirm, but he kisses him anyway. Because kissing Stiles is good. It’s good for his human. And it’s good for his wolf. And neither of them have to settle for anything when it’s kissing Stiles.

“I’d never ask you to take me since you’d be that creepy handsome storm cloud in the dark corner keeping an eye on everything and everyone and mostly me, and plus, you were probably prom king back in the old days when you walked to school up hill both ways and,” he’s cut off by another kiss. Since he hasn’t let go of Derek’s shirt yet. 

“Or his claws. Is it easier to rip out a throat with your teeth or disembowel with your claws? Is there like a particular call of the wild that decides course of death for your prey or is it,” his lids haven’t even fluttered open yet, “were you prom king? You had to have been. With all that wolfy talent you were probably captain of every sports team in the school, dating cheerleaders and getting head behind the bleachers,” they flutter open. Finally. 

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he sighs, his mouth twists up into a smile and he leans his forehead close, close enough that all Derek has to do is tilt and his lips are resting against the soft skin, delicate like tissue paper.

“Prom is coming up?”

“Yeah, and I don’t know, I mean it’s not like anyone is actually going to ask me. But I was thinking since everyone else is going, maybe I should ask someone as a friend you know. But I don’t really want to ask someone as a friend, since I’d rather just hang out here with you but I’m a senior and I only have one senior prom or whatever the cliche reason to go to prom is. But I don’t want to pressure you to take me ‘cause my dad is probably going to chaperone if I go and I don’t want that just yet. Since, you know, he’s still the Sheriff and you’re still scared of him and…”

“I’m not afraid of your dad.”

“You’re scared of me. And you’re scared of my dad finding out that you love me. So maybe you’re not scared of my dad since you know, there’s the whole throat ripping thing that you could do to any human so it’s not like he’s any different in that case, but then there’s the whole ‘what happens if you rip the throat of your boyfriend’s dad?’ Is there a werewolf handbook somewhere for genetic wolves? A how to deal in any scenario while trying to act human kind of thing. Bitten wolves were humans first so it’s easy enough for them to just be humans even after they’re bitten. But you, how old were you even when you realized you were different? Whoa, I just realized there are so many things I’ve never asked you. Or I have and you haven’t answered. Or I’ve thought and I haven’t said. Or I’m,” his eyes fall to Derek’s lips, “a traffic jam,” when he takes note of the position of Derek’s eyebrows, “at least to you it smells like lemons instead of half-cooked onions,” turning his head to get a whiff of his armpits, “or the dumpster outside the sub sandwich place downtown. Hey, you didn’t deny it when I accused you of loving me.”

Derek hears his heart thud hard, his mouth snaps shut, partially open again, but Derek cuts him off, “is it an accusation at this point?”

“I,” it falters, his eyes widen, his mouth clamps shut, he’s sounding less like a traffic jam and more like a chattering chipmunk. 

“It’s okay. If you don’t,” his human says it. His wolf is curling itself into a ball, “and I definitely wasn’t prom king. Didn’t even go. First shift happens when puberty hits. Spent the first six shifts chained up in the basement. There’s no handbook. Just family, traditions, lore. I was not captain of all the sports teams, that’s not even possible. Just the sports I played. I was not popular and did not fuck cheerleaders. I won’t murder your prom date. Was that all? Or did I miss something in that traffic jam?” he feels his lips quirk up at the corners, his gaze staying on Stiles’, his hands have already found a good handle on his hips. 

“I love you too,” he didn’t hear a word Derek just said. There was so much chattering and wind in his head the whole time he was responding, that Derek knows those four words were well thought out. Even if he looks like he didn’t mean to say them, or maybe they took him by surprise. Maybe he was only trying to think them, wrap them around every lobe of his brain before he tasted them on his tongue. 

But he doesn’t look like he wants to take them back. The human reaches out, strokes a soothing hand up his back, cupping his head and watching his eyes like a warm brown sweater and a gentle cup of cocoa. Watching his eyes like, “home,” before he leans in. Seizing his lips while his wolf keeps whispering that four letter word that means forever. 

—————

Stiles spends most of this time in the loft wandering around poking things, or doing his homework with a fidgety leg, or lying in Derek’s bed, or complaining about Derek trying too hard to feed him. The wolf wants a happy mate. The human knows Stiles is still growing. 

He settles on healthy dinners. And the ever presence of snacks. But nothing that’s still bleeding. 

When he’s awake in Derek’s bed he spends the time trying to wrap them into some kind of human pretzel. When he’s asleep, he sprawls.

The human wants the sprawl, his own space on the other side of the bed but close enough to reach out if he wakes thinking he’s alone. The wolf wants to put his hooks in and never let that pretzel unwind. Well, until someone gets hungry. 

He settles on lying on his side watching Stiles sleep, a hand on his arm. And occasional spooning. 

When he sits on the couch doing his homework, he stops sometimes just to watch Derek. Whatever Derek is doing, and wonders things like, “what do you do all day? Just work out and eat protein?”

“Start my day by killing a deer. Spend the morning licking it down to bone. The rest of it,” he shrugs, does a few one-armed pull-ups, “you’re lookin’ at it.”

Stiles isn’t sure what to believe, he can tell that by looking at him. Or Derek’s not sure if any of made it’s way past all the noise in his head. Well, one thing made it past all the noise. Or maybe two things. Biceps. 

His eyes linger on Derek’s arm and his legs unconsciously open, the pencil in his hand ends up resting against this lower lip. When he blinks, he wonders, “how do you still live here? After being impaled with a lead pipe. Ya know, pretty close to death and all.”

He shrugs. Something pinches in his chest, he supposes it’s the same way he lived at home for so long after they all died. Home. Home is a brown sweater and a mug of hot chocolate now. Then it was family. A house. Warmth. Laughter. Support. 

Sometimes the teenage optimism and hope is drowning in the chaos of adulthood. 

Derek drops from the beam, walks the space between them, shoves the coffee table back to make room for kneeling between Stiles’ knees. His arms wrap around his middle, his cheek rests on his hip. Stiles’ hands find his shoulders, grasping tight to the bare sweat slicked skin.

“Home,” is the only word that Derek can get past his lips. Stiles might think he means this place. This structure of wood and iron. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t mean that at all. He means this structure of bone and muscle, blood and veins, organs and tissues, nerves and the blind human emotion of love. Love. Home. Mate. 

—————

It happens on a full moon. On the seventh full moon of their relationship. Or the seventh full moon since Stiles didn’t want to be a virgin sacrifice. Seven full moons since he kissed him for the first time and felt like his world was spinning upside down but suddenly complete and that four letter word kept appearing in his closed lids. 

It happens on a full moon. With his face buried in Stiles' neck, with his arms wrapped around his chest. With his long limbs tucked into Derek’s and his hands gripping Derek’s forearms. With Derek’s face rubbing against his skin, smelling his salt and his humanity. Rubbing circles with his nose, lips, and chin against neck, shoulder. Stiles turns with an amused sigh and a tightened grip, “you tryin’ to start a fire with all that friction?”

“What?” Derek’s head rises, leaning over where Stiles has rolled back, shoulders to the bed, hips still trapped by Derek’s, “not enough lube?”

“I’m talking about your face,” his eyes are bright, comforting. His heart is steady, the steady beat of someone being lulled to sleep instead of fucked out of his head. 

It happens on a full moon. It happens when Derek forgets to settle. He forgets to settle in that space between what his human wants and what his wolf wants. He forgets to settle because they both want more. They both want home. They both want mate. They both want love. They both want forever. 

Something must happen on his face, Stiles’ hand is warm and solid when it slides across his cheek, “hey big guy, I love you, alright? And I’m not going anywhere, so no need to scent me.”

Derek can hear Stiles’ heart, without hitches, telling him the truth of that statement. Telling him that he’s certain. In this moment he is certain he’s not leaving. But leaving isn’t always a choice. Derek knows that.

“And I know what you’re thinking,” he’s not done talking, since going on a long drawn out ramble about something random is his thing after sex if he doesn’t fall asleep mid-orgasm.

“No talking,” tucking his face into that delicate neck where it meets his shoulder, “we’re not done.”

“Hold on,” his fingers take a firm grip on Derek’s chin, willing him out of his hiding spot, “I know you like to push against the things that you want to keep. I know you’ve pushed plenty of people away from you to protect them. But I’m in this, I’m in this no matter what it brings. Alright?”

Twisting his head until the fingers release, tucking back in, taking a deep breath of the centering scent of his mate, “I can’t…”

“Always protect me. I know that. I can protect myself. Sort of. Well, sometimes. You can’t stop the danger around you anymore than anyone else can, you just attract it a little bit. Like just a little bit more than the average person. Or maybe a little bit more than the average werewolf. Or maybe a lot more. Or maybe it’s…”

“Stiles,” it’s a little bit of a growl. The full moon and all.

“Okay, just promise me you won’t push me away to try to protect me,” it comes out fast like it’s all one word and it takes Derek’s brain a moment to process it.

“I,” want to promise that. The human wants to promise that, the wolf wants to make a den and never let Stiles leave it, “won’t push you away to protect you,” he removes his face from his hiding spot as he says it, lets a flash of red eyes seal it, so Stiles knows the wolf is on the same page.

“Okay, now quit sniffing me and start fucking me like you mean it,” dragging Derek’s head down to press lips to lips. 

Fucking him like he means it though, it’s not exactly some rough, plunging, slamming affair. It’s more like a gentle rocking of waves against a rowboat on a serene lake in the middle of the mountains somewhere. A place they should find. And build a den. A house. A house. They should build a house there. 

It happens on a full moon. And it happens with, “I love you,” and mate whispering against Derek’s ear.


	6. A Prom Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a prom night.

A Prom Night

It happens on a prom night. Senior prom night. 

Stiles isn’t exactly proud of the moment when he tells his father, “Dad, I’m not gay but I like Derek’s dick in my…”

“Stop,” to Dad’s credit, he doesn’t spontaneously combust over all the words that could finish that sentence. And he only takes a beat to recover, his hand on the doorframe of Stiles’ bedroom where he had only come up to say good night or tell him to shut the computer off and get some sleep. School night. He takes a deep breath, waits while Stiles sits down in his desk chair, well, misses the desk chair because he’s pretty sure his foot hit the wheel and knocked the chair away from him as he was backing away from his own idiocy and trying to avoid eye contact with his dad while being biologically programmed to be drawn to it. So when he gets off the floor, smoothes his clothes out, and sits calmly in the desk chair. Calmly without drumming his fingers on the desk. Not a single time. 

“I’m not sure which part of that I should address first,” it’s hesitant. The way Dad is when he’s somewhere between angry and confused and trying to keep Stiles from running away and flailing himself headfirst into spazz land, “okay,” he’s entering the room. This is bad. He’s sitting on the edge of Stiles’ bed. This is so bad, “okay. Your sexuality does not change,” his hands motion towards Stiles and then land on his own chest for a moment, “us. It does not change our relationship or the way I feel about you. No matter what that sexuality is. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles does not start turning the chair back and forth, back and forth really quickly. That’s not something an eighteen year old does. That’s something a twelve year old with ADD does. There's an H in there too. That’s not something he does, “got it.”

“With as little detail as possible, are you being safe about it?”

“Well Dad I’m a guy so I can’t get pregnant and Derek’s a werewolf so he can’t get STD’s, so,” Dad does that thing where he looks like he’s eaten something sour and then his mouth forms a ‘wh’, and Stiles cuts him off, “yes. Yeah. Safe. Safe as safe can be. Safe as a helmet and a six-point harness. Safe as goalie pads on defense. Safe as a well-packed parachute and a back-up to a back-up. Safe as…”

“Okay,” his eyes say ‘not safe’, but his mouth says, “we’ll just skip that part for now. Maybe have a chat with Melissa or someone who is…”

“Deaton. Deaton would be the one with the werewolf knowledge and supernatural, um, happenings. But even in supernatural worlds guys can’t get pregnant. So…” well, guess Dad really knows how the sentence that first started this conversation ended now.

“Stop. Deaton it is,” his hands are on his knees now like he’s going to push himself up off the bed, but he stops, settles back in and stares until Stiles rises his eyebrows and opens his mouth, and the look clearly says, ‘don’t talk’. So he doesn’t. And he doesn’t start tapping his foot either. Dad finally sighs, “well next time you are not sleeping at Scott’s and you are not sleeping at Derek’s and he is not stalking you, can you please tell him to watch the azalea when he leaps off the roof after checking to make sure you’re sleeping soundly?”

“Azaleas were Mom’s favorite. Got it,” and he certainly doesn’t reach out to boop Dad’s nose.

He shakes his head, gets to his feet this time. He’s taken this rather well, especially considering all the, um, intimate details. He stops in the doorway, hand on the frame again, “you’ve always been your own kid Stiles, and I’ve mostly trusted you to do the right things even when you’re doing the wrong things and getting into trouble your heart is always in the right place. And I don’t want to know when this all started for the record, but I noticed. Noticed you seem happy lately,” his eyes are maybe a little glossy. He clears his throat, knuckles his nose and announces, “when Derek’s ready to be a gentleman about this, he should join us for dinner some night.”

“No! No, not no like no dinner. No, like Derek is a really good cook and we should join him for dinner some night. Or are you supposed to invite the boyfriend over to meet the family? Or he supposed to invite you over to ask if he can court me? Or is arresting him because of, um, maybe a little bit of a lie involving me enough of an ice breaker?”

And Dad has exited the building. Or maybe just the bedroom, “good night Stiles.”

When he leans back in the desk chair it does not tip over. And he does not go ass over teakettle on the floor. 

“Stiles?”

“I’m okay, just fine, just going to sleep on the floor tonight. And not talk about Derek’s dick to my dad. That didn’t just happen.”

Well, at least he doesn’t respond.

—————

It’s a little better the second time, but not much better, his brain worked out a hundred ways to say these things but his mouth just keeps deciding the best route is the most direct one, “I’m not gay but I really like D…”

“Derek,” Scot interrupts, “I know.”

“Oh.”

“Smell it on you for months.”

“Smell Derek on me?”

“He is an alpha, he has a very distinct odor and I can smell him from like a mile away. So yeah, when he’s on you for months, it’s not hard to put two and two together.”

“Maybe he was just helping me with my homework or something.”

“If that’s how he helps you with homework, then sign me up,” Danny interrupts with a wink.

Stiles might actually be speechless when a a tingle of unnecessary jealousy flairs up his spine. Derek? Danny wants to get with Derek? Well, who doesn’t want to get with Derek? But really, as much as they’ve talked about it, or have they talked about it? Yes. As much as they’ve talked about it, they haven’t really put a label on it or proclaimed monogamy. Have they? No. Not really. Well, there’s that whole mating for life thing. Maybe they should talk about it in human terms. 

No, Derek is Stiles’. That’s just how it is. 

“So wait, you knew about this for as long as it’s been going on, and you’ve just been pretending not to know?”

Scott shrugs, “yeah,” hand landing on his shoulder for a tight squeeze, “happy for you dude. But um,” leveling him with his eyes, “next time you say you’re not gay, try saying it like being gay is not a bad thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing. I’m just not gay.”

His head tilts like he’s listening for it to be a lie.

“Maybe. Maybe I’m gay. Or maybe I just really like Derek’s…”

“That’s enough.”

“Smile.”

“How would you even know? He never smiles,” his eyes catch on Stiles’ and linger, a grin rising, “Derek smiles at you.”

It’s not a question, but he answers anyway, “yeah.”

He does. And that’s not a lie at all. Stiles loves Derek’s smile.

—————

It happens on a prom night. It happens on Stiles’ senior prom night. But it doesn’t happen in the gym with a girl in a dress and a guy in a tux. It doesn’t happen with a rented limo and a DJ. It doesn’t happen with chaperones and snuck-in liquor. It doesn’t happen with a prom king and queen.

It happens on a prom night. And it happens at Derek’s loft. Where Stiles snuck in when he was off killing deer or humans or supernatural creatures to keep the world a safe place or just walking around all broody and sexy, whatever he does. 

It happens with mylar and crepe and quiet music since Stiles has learned a few things about Derek and why he keeps things so austere around him. The world is too loud of a place. So the music is quiet, but well, Stiles isn’t. Not really. He tries to be. But it’s hard to be quiet when there’s so much to be excited about. Bopping around the place with so much crepe and mylar and shiny things it’s ridiculous and he definitely got carried away. Probably should have asked Lydia to take care of this part since it’s more like a ten year old girl vomited Party City’s entire aisle four all over the loft than it is a prom looking scenario. 

And maybe the music isn’t quiet anymore and maybe he’s singing along and maybe he missed the opportunity to put on the tux he rented, and maybe he should have rented one for Derek too but he really can’t picture Derek in a tux now that he thinks about it and what the hell size is he anyway? Like a size living-breathing-Hulk? The Incredible WereHulk. 

He snickers to himself and thinks he should try that one out on Derek sometime when he realizes he’s, in fact, not alone in the loft anymore. It’s not like he jumps back ten feet or anything either when he sees Derek standing in the corner, arms crossed but not in the I’m-deciding-how-to-kill-you way, eyebrows risen but not in the you’re-an-idiot sort of way, “what’s this?”

“It was definitely not me dancing off beat and singing off key to ‘Love Me Like You Do’, if that’s what you’re implying. Or if that’s what your brows are implying. And your stare is, um, melting my clothes off,” he tries with a lame shrug.

And it happens when Derek smiles. And Stiles’ heart thuds so hard against his chest that it propels him to walk forward. And keep walking forward until he’s balancing on the edge of Derek’s bubble. Waiting for Derek to break the bubble since Stiles can’t really tell what he’s thinking right now. His eyes shifting from Stiles to the decorations to the laptop that’s blasting now. 

“Oh, that, yeah,” he doesn’t stumble over his own feet to get over to the table to turn down the volume. That doesn’t happen, “that’s better,” now that it’s practically muted, “oh shit,” when he turns around Derek’s practically in his face, “didn’t hear you,” as his hands find Stiles’ hips and pull him close. Like he didn’t already know that he didn’t hear him? Of course he didn’t hear him, it’s one of his favorite wolfy tricks to play when he’s feeling playful. 

Stiles’ arms find their way to Derek’s shoulders, resting loosely and waiting for that greeting kiss. Damn, he’s so warm. Sparks and Supernova 1987A and all that appearing in closed lids when his tongue makes a quick entrance into Stiles’ mouth as soon as he opens it. His hands sliding up to his lower back, pressing impossibly closer. He doesn’t stop assaulting him with his mouth until Stiles’ dick is hard as a rock, uncomfortable in his pants. Not that it takes that long, but still, the intention is clear when his plaid gets shoved off his shoulders and his undershirt tugged over his head. Pushed back onto the couch on top of a bag of probably aisle five of Party City. Pants tugged off and discarded.

Okay, so how does it work every single time that he’s completely naked and Derek is going to town on a major pleasure zone before Derek even has a single item of clothing off? And how is it possible that he’s already spinning and thinking he should have gotten that stupid disco ball when Derek is barely getting started on what will become a torturously time consuming prep session? Well, that’s mostly because Stiles comes way too damn fast every single time so Derek gives him some recovery time, just enough to let that overstimulated painfully hypersensitive state when his gears start turning too quickly to control portion of the night ebb before he gets to work on the actual sex part. The actual part where they’re both going to get off. 

It takes five years, it takes five hours, it takes five minutes. Maybe only five seconds. Stiles isn’t sure where time goes when Derek is spending an immense amount of time touching, sucking, licking, kissing and holding him. Every part of him. But he does know the time from when they’re finally connected as one being and Derek is leaning over him all soft eyes and silent questions, waiting for a nod; until the time his face is tucked into Stiles’ neck and he’s panting while Supernova 1987A breaks and explodes and spirals and sparks until it’s nothing but twinkling red lights fading off into distant planets that can’t be seen by even the most powerful telescope; um, goes too quickly. That span of time goes too quickly. Even if it is five years. 

“I think,” sighing, running his fingers through Derek’s hair, “we were s’posed to dance before the sexy times.”

His amused exhale rises goosebumps on Stiles’ neck, “we’ll get there. And I guess I’ll wear the tux I rented for just in case I brought you to your prom.”

“The what? You? You were going to? After I told you? After I said not to? That I didn’t want to go?”

“Yeah,” when his face rises, there’s a gentle smile on it, his eyes are twinkling, “if you wanna go, there’s…”

“No. Not at all,” his hand is on the back of Derek’s head, lingering there, putting a gentle pressure on but not enough to bring him to his lips just yet, “I think being here with all the beautiful contents of Party City with you and um, The Weekend, maybe?”

“For the weekend? Yeah, if you want.”

“No. The Weekend is the band. I think.”

“You think? You made the playlist.”

“It’s called Pandora.”

“Don’t open it.”

“What?”

“The box. All death, and sickness.”

“The jewelry?”

“What?”

“Box.”

“Pandora’s box.”

“Oh, right, that box. Pandora jewelry. My mom had a Pandora ring.”

“What’s Pandora?”

“Um, the music?” he’s pretty sure that one was supposed to be a statement. 

“But you made the playlist.”

“No. Not really. It’s,” he’s cut off by those lips. Only long enough for Stiles to wonder with mashed up clarity against his kiss, “did someone in your family open Pandora’s box? Is that why you’re cursed with the gift of fighting the evil demons and plagues and all that? Wanna hear something funny? My mom’s ring was called the knotted heart ring. Knotted,” it’s all very clear against Derek’s lips.

Clear enough that Derek mumbles back, “maybe your dad has been hiding something for…”

“No. Ew. No, just not going there.”

“Knot going there?”

Oh two can play this game with all the eyebrow wriggling and emphasis on that word, the game that Stiles started weeks ago but Derek keeps shrugging off and being Derek about it all, which is making Stiles even more curious. Since that’s his nature, not because he really actually wants to be a wolfy knotted mate. He doesn’t think he wants that. That’s weird. It’s weird, right? 

Shit, “ew,” now his hands press fingertips into Derek’s skull until he has no choice but to dive back into his lips. Well, Derek has a choice, Derek could always overpower every one of Stiles’ wants and whims. But he doesn’t. He never overpowers what Stiles wants in these intimate moments. Control. Derek walks that line with precision. It’s as sexy as it is frustrating. Endearing that he controls himself to the extent of not ripping Stiles in half. Or maybe just proper human behavior. Either way, the guy has the capacity to do whatever gory shit he wants to Stiles. And he doesn’t do it. 

He feels himself smiling against Derek’s mouth. Derek’s wolf is just a big ol’ softie. 

—————

So it happens on a prom night. On Stiles’ senior prom night. In a loft packed full of Party City. With the music soft and he’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be a fast dance but it’s not. In rented tuxes. Stiles was mostly right, Derek looks out of place in a tux, but he also looks hot as hell. Of course he looks hot as hell. He’s Derek Hale. 

It happens on a prom night. Just like all cliche prom nights he loses his virginity. Oh, not that. That already happened. Just like all cliche prom nights they end up making out in the backseat of Derek’s Camaro. Oh, not that. That’s happened a lot already. Just like all prom night cliches they end up realizing they’ve been in love with each other this whole time when they were supposed to be enemies or they were too opposite or they were supposed to dislike each other or nope, not that either. They realized the whole love thing a long time ago. So not really a long time ago, but it feels like it was a long time ago since Stiles is having a hard time remembering anything pre-Derek right now while his body is held close in Derek’s protective bubble and his head is leaning on his shoulder and he’s actually a pretty good dancer. Of course he’s a good dancer. All that wolfy grace and all. And Stiles is glad for it since he’s pretty sure if he was the one leading they’d have danced themselves right off the balcony or something by now.

It happens on a prom night. It happens on a perfect prom night. But nothing can ever just be perfect, can it? There’s gotta be a point where the other shoe drops. There’s gotta be a part where the fat lady sings. Or the wizard is revealed to be a sham. Or the clock strikes midnight and the horses are mice and the carriage is a pumpkin and the shoe is all that’s left of what for a moment was perfect. Perfect. It was perfect. And perfect is an illusion. It’ll always be an illusion.


	7. The Eve Of The Strawberry Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on the eve of the Strawberry moon.
> 
> Gotta be some drama at some point, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is where mild amounts of violence begin. It's nothing too graphic as far as I'm concerned, but I feel as though it should be mentioned before you jump in.

The Eve Of The Strawberry Moon

It happens on the eve of the strawberry moon. With Stiles in his arms, his face tucked into his neck. Not scenting him. 

“You’re scenting me.”

“I’m not.”

When his head turns, it forces Derek out of his neck. This place is a wreck. It looks like a six year old’s dream. But he tried and in the trying did something amazing. 

“So, um, I should probably tell you before you hear it somewhere else. I got it,” he’s trying to hold his voice steady but his heart is leaping with joy, “the internship. And, um, thing is, it starts in July and then it's straight to school, so, we’re um, I mean I’ll be coming home as often as I can and there’s phones. And video chats. And if your hundred year old ass can accept technology then there’s all kinds of options for staying in touch that don’t involve a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, and a stamp with a wait time of forever. You know?” his eyes are jumping back and forth between Derek’s, heart is racing and the smell of lemons is overpowering.

The human wants to say that long distance can't work. The wolf wants to get a leash and collar and come along. He settles for, “that’s awesome,” squeezing him tighter against him, “proud of you.”

“Well, you are the only reason I passed the PFT, so I guess running from a growling werewolf in the woods in the dark is good preparation for physical fitness after all,” he shrugs, the set of tension remaining in his shoulders, the lemon thinning but lingering.

The human wants to download whatever app it takes to stay in contact at all times even if it ends up being for naught. The wolf wants to shed clothes and start running now so he can beat his flight out, find a piece of land, prepare a den. He settles for, “we’ll figure it out,” and leaning into his forehead with his lips. 

“Yeah, of course. Said everyone ever staring down the barrel of a long distance relationship.”

The human is wondering if he should buy a ring, at least try to make it work. The wolf is whimpering those four letter words. Mate. Home. Love. Stiles is turning into a board, the physical touch making the lemons throb through his system and oxidized pennies grace his tongue. So Derek releases. Takes a step back, staying within reach but not touching, “long distance is,” his human is reminding him of all the things he’s lost that he loved, “fine. It works for a lot of people.”

“And it doesn’t work for a lot of people,” his eyes can’t find a focal point, one hand rising to push through his hair, “it doesn’t work for most people. And it’s, it’s not like we’ve exactly announced our relationship to everyone here even, and it’s not like we’ve defined it in any kind of regular person terms. Sure, mate for life and all that, but what does that even mean in person terms?” he starts pacing. Tugging his tie loose, unbuttoning the top two buttons, shaking his hands out, then unbuttoning a third, “I mean, I understand the whole let’s be together forever thing, but what would you even call me if you introduced me to someone? Do any of your friends know? Do you even have any friends? Is that, that was,” Derek’s human is screaming about all the things he’s loved that are gone now, “sorry, that was, I’m, sorry, shit,” his hands flail out at his sides, fingers splayed wide before they shake, rise, and run through his hair. He stops moving suddenly, “I’m scared.”

“You’re fine Stiles. It’s perfectly fine to be nervous about moving across the country to start a new school…”

“Would you move? Would you ever leave Beacon Hills? Would you ever just go, just come with me, just go with me? Would you, Derek, do you check up on me at night? Dad said you need to watch the azaleas. They were Mom’s favorite and they’re right beside the porch where you jump down and he was strangely cool with the whole thing but we need to have some kind of official meet the family thing I guess, since it’s the gentlemanly thing to do and…”

“That’s one of the places I went today.”

“Quantico? Today? In one day? I mean, you’re fast when you’re shifted, but..”

“The station. I went down to the station and talked to your dad. And he didn’t shoot me,” he feels a smile start to rise. The smile cuts the strong scent of lemons and rust. Stiles stops moving, “we are having dinner with your dad on Tuesday. Here.”

“Oh. Of course. That. Not Quantico.”

“Stiles, I,” his hand rises, slides over his beard.

Stiles cuts him off, “no, don’t answer any of that yet. Just,” a deep breath. His heart is starting to calm, bit by bit, “let’s let it,” hands at his sides, palms down like he’s physically trying to push the last of the anxiety down to the ground, “let’s let it just stew for a minute.”

“Okay,” his human says it. His wolf wants to lick Stiles. Maybe grab him by the scruff and throw him into a den where he’s safe from the world and no one can touch him, where the FBI academy doesn’t exist. He settles, they settle for an open hand at his side, “wanna dance?”

“Yeah,” it shakes, his eyes water but relief is the main emotion that Derek is reading, “yeah, I do.”

I do. It echoes. Derek stifles his reaction. The reaction like slow rolling lava through his body and the word mate at the tip of his tongue. Instead, he smiles, calm. And waits. Waits for Stiles to take the steps over. Waits for Stiles to come into his bubble and lean against him. Waits for Stiles to give in. Give in to the low thrumming in his body after a spike in anxiety. He waits until he smells cocoa and cinnamon, then he leans his cheek against Stiles’ head. Not giving into the wolf that wants to rub his face all over him. Not giving into his human that wants to crumble at the thought of losing. Losing. Always losing.

—————

It happens on the eve of a strawberry moon. It happens while he’s lying on his side allowing sweat to dry and watching Stiles sprawled across his side of the bed. It’s strange, Derek never realized that was his side. That Stiles had a side of the bed in Derek’s bed. That half of Derek’s bed had become Stiles’. 

He’s watching soft pink lids fluttering shut and then forcing themselves open again. He has something he wants to say, but he’s trying not to say it. Or maybe he’s not sure how to say it. Or maybe he’s waiting for Derek to say something.

He doesn’t speak. Instead, he reaches out, sliding a thumb across the soft surface of Stiles’ lips. Lips that turn into a gentle smile. Head that turns towards Derek. The light from the nearly full moon seeping through the windows and caressing every curve of Stiles that Derek wants to caress. That nearly full moon already a pull, a tug to give in, to fulfill, to take. Power. 

He takes a deep breath, watches as Stiles does the same, listens to the tiny shutter in it and the lazy thump of his heart. He wants to smooth his lips over each indentation of muscles, bones, and ligaments under pale, thin, delicate flesh. He wants to trail his tongue across every drop of sweat before it can dry in the warming early summer air spilling through the open windows. He wants to watch goosebumps rise and chase them with his fingertips. 

Another deep breath, drawing the tingles from his fingertips into his body and stifling them in his gut. Two rounds already. One on the couch. One on the bed. Three would be too much for Stiles. But if he asked, he’d probably not turn it down. So he doesn’t ask. He just waits. And watches. Every single twitch in his face, every in and out of his breath, listens to every beat of his heart. Takes in the scent of tangy salty sweat. Undertones of sweet syrupy sated and tired. 

He watches his hand smooth over his cheek, thumb coming to rest on the hinge of his jaw. Stiles’ hand rises, settles over his, the eyes flutter shut again. Longer this time. The smile is weaker this time. The heartbeat is slowing again. The breath is shifting. The hand is getting heavy overtop his. Like a slowly deflating balloon, he finally gives in. Lets sleep overtake him. The early morning dew drying on his body, Derek slides the sheet up, covering his chest, knowing his skin will chill in this air and he’ll snuggle closer. Derek doesn’t want that, can’t want that, can’t allow himself to want that. 

So he allows this. Watching. Counting breaths. Counting beats. Taking inhales of his soft sleep scents. Of lavender and open air. The sound of the babbling brook and gentle breeze in green leaves. 

He allows this. This is all he’s allowed. Even though he shouldn’t. Shouldn’t allow anything soft. Or sweet. Or innocent. Those fickle delicate things. 

—————

It happens on the the eve of the strawberry moon. It happens when Derek startles awake to the feel of an empty bed. It happens when he sits abruptly, smelling the earthy spice of black pepper. 

“Stiles!” it comes out of his mouth before he has eyes on him. Jolting himself out of bed, eyes panicky but ears keen. Ears finding a heartbeat, nose finding a scent. A scent that’s off, it’s Stiles but it’s not Stiles. 

Yanking on the closet pair of underwear while he forces his center, forces his calm. Anger like a red ball in his chest, a red ball that he can shrink or grow as he sees fit. A red ball born of a burned down house. A red ball born of a dead family. A red ball born of being locked in a dungeon, chained and fighting the beast that’s lived inside him since the day he was born. A beast that has more humanity than most humans.

Stiles is on the railing of the balcony. Dress pants on, white dress shirt open, unbuttoned, flapping in the breeze. The black of his dress shoes glinting the reflection of the moon descending in the early morning’s sky.

“Stiles,” he can hear his heart beating steady. There is no lemon in the air, there is no babbling brook or fresh Spring breeze through budding trees. There is nothing. An eery air of nothingness, “Stiles,” he approaches slowly, hand out. A jump from here would certainly kill him if that’s his plan. A fall from here would do the same if Derek startles him, “Stiles. Please.”

Derek’s human is telling him he never should have got attached. Derek’s wolf is whimpering, “please, look at me Stiles,” black pepper burns through his nostrils, a sudden wind, a gust not produced by nature. A deep roll of thunder. Derek’s hackles rise, nose detecting an incoming storm. Approaching too quickly, “Stiles, please look at me,” he’s nearly whimpering out loud, “Stiles, please,” his hand extending, another step forward. 

Lightening slices through the remaining blackness of the night, creating a halo around Stiles and he jumps. 

“No!” Derek hears himself shout, feels himself lunge over the rail. His human wants to freeze, break down, sob. HIs wolf reacts. His wolf leaps the balcony, below him a black and white bird with a hooked red beak streaked with dried brown blood. The bird is human sized and in it’s talons is Stiles’ limp body. 

It happens on the eve of the strawberry moon. It happens when the wolf runs, with one thought and one thought only. Mate. And the wolf will do anything to keep his mate safe.


	8. The Strawberry Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on the strawberry moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *******************
> 
> Lightning bird - In Xhosa mythology, if your mother or grandmother hands you the bird as a quirky heirloom, beware: only you can control it, and if you don’t fancy a cursed pet, it will become a terrifying ownerless monster known as Ishologu. Things aren’t much better if you don’t own the most feared creature in Xhosa folklore: if seeing it doesn’t make you sick with worry, you’ll soon be enjoying the delights of tuberculosis, or at least its symptoms, as it presses down on your chest, sucks your blood, or kicks you repeatedly in the chest or back.
> 
> *******************
> 
> umlingo omhlophe - white witch - I know white witches are most commonly viewed as 'good' witches. But in this case, not so much.
> 
> *******************
> 
> WARNING: Non-con bondage, OC villian, Violence, Blood, Wounds, Hospital scene. None of which is super graphic.

The Strawberry Moon

It happens on the strawberry moon as Derek called it. The full moon in June. The last full moon of Spring. 

It happens on the strawberry moon. It happens when Stiles wakes, hands bound behind his back, face full of fluids he has yet to decipher, cheek against cold and unforgiving metal. Probably tied up in a basement somewhere. Yeah, well, that’s not exactly anything new around here. A deep breath and blinking eyes, revealing a blurry and spinning room. The floor is wet. Wet with just a nice little buffet of bodily fluids. 

A female voice that he doesn’t recognize. A language that he doesn’t recognize. Metal like blood in his mouth. Metal like blood in his nose. His head feels like it’s going to explode when he moves it. Great. This is just great. 

He startles back hard. Hard enough to smack his head off whatever is behind him when a birdlike creature appears in his face, “carrion man, you need a breath mint.”

It’s beak opens, a shrill, piercing noice emits and sends shockwaves through Stiles’ core. It’s punctuated with a chirp of pain and woman’s voice, the one that was speaking a moment ago, “not now Eddie,” the bird disappears and a hand, cold with long fingers takes hold of his chin, Aiming his gaze to meet hers. Eyes black with veins of hypnotic blue throbbing in her irises, “you’re finally awake,” it sounds innocent enough, but the twisted smirk on her face tells otherwise.

“Who are you? No, stupid question to ask in Beacon Hills these days. I don’t even want to know. Just a demon witch reincarnated from some ancient Indian burial grounds and resurrected on the blood moon with a bird sidekick with a really shrill greeting sound is plenty. That’s plenty. What should I call you? Demon witch or…” he’s cut off by a hot prodding to his side. The scent of burning flesh hits his nostrils before the pain can slice into his body and force a silent scream from his mouth. The bird is suddenly there, opening it’s red beak again, right over his mouth like he’s swallowing the scream.

That’s not weird at all. Nope. Not at all.

“I guess we’ll settle for resurrected by the…” it happens again. The whole thing does. The prod, the smell, the scream, the bird. And it’s still not weird. Not at all. But he’s getting the impression that this woman does not like being called names. Or maybe she doesn’t like labels. Or truths? Maybe he hit the nail on the head with that one.

“Humans do not speak my name,” when she’s near his face he feels like his insides are being mashed with a meat tenderizing tool, the one that looks like a mini bed of nails. 

“Okay Ms humans-do-not-speak-my-name, what do you want with me?”

“Not you,” she leans into his face, takes a good inhale of his scent. Which, sure, Stiles is getting used to being smelled by various mythical creatures but the way she does it, it’s like she’s pulling his essence out and making it her own or something weird. Not weird. Nothing is weird anymore, “your mate.”

“My what? I’m a human. You said so yourself. Humans don’t have mates. We have friends, friends with benefits, boyfriends, girlfriends,” his list is cut off by her hand wrapping around his throat. The air leaving him in one large whoosh. 

“Derek Hale,” she hisses it, her eyes flash a flat black. Her fingers release but the touch remains. Burning and wiggling along his skin like she just filled him with maggots. 

He shudders, heat splashing through his veins while intense cold slinks across his skin. Whatever this demon witch is, he sure as hell hopes Derek doesn’t come for him. She’ll get tired of a human eventually, but if her and her bird get off on pain then she could keep herself entertained with Derek for days. 

That hope is dashed pretty damn quick since the window breaking across this dungeon cage thing, reveals Derek with his bulging were-hulk muscles, snarling growl, red eyes. Damn it Derek. Apparently he’ll never get tired of making an entrance.

“Ask and you shall receive,” her voice is a quiet snake slithering across the room, her fingers clamping down on Stiles’ neck again. This time the air is only mostly cut off, pulsing grips allowing shallow breaths between clenches, “move Derek. I dare you.”

“Umlingo omhlophe,” Derek whispers.

“Watch your mouth Hale,” she smirks, tightens her vise on Stiles’ neck, “Valentine is fine, Love.”

The bird-man thing is stepping towards Derek, fangs bared. Oh, that’s not even weirder at all. The bird-man is also a vampire. Cool.

Derek’s red eyes flash, his teeth bared, claws out, hands remaining at his sides, “it doesn’t have to come to violence,” she sing-songs it.

Too late, it’s not so much not breathing that bothers Stiles in this particular moment since she is giving him breath on the right rhythm and all, since he’s already bound and not going anywhere, trapped. He’s trapped but he’s not going to let his mind spin out on that. It’s out of his control and he needs to let the adrenaline lead, not the anxiety. But not having his voice, man, that’s the true killer. Not that his dialogue could help in this scenario but if he could tell Derek to leave, that he’s got this totally under control. That last part’s a lie. But Derek needs to leave. 

“What do you want Valentine?” he snarls it, keeping his eyes trained on the vampire-man-bird.

“You know exactly what I want Derek. I want that red-eyed power running through my veins. I want the alpha. I must say,” her free hand rises, sliding over Stiles’ nose, resting on his lips, “I’m surprised,” her eyes on him making his insides feel like mush. More mush. More like applesauce now instead of cottage cheese, “he’s not what I expected when I heard your mating announcement. Oh Derek, tsk tsk now,” when he emits a low growl, “thought you were being quiet, did you? Thought no one would hear you? That’s sweet. Have you told him about Paige yet? Have you told him about how her neck felt beneath your hands, have you told him the way it sounds when you snap those precious bones? Hmm,” she gets impossibly closer to Stiles’ face, her fingers feel sharper against his throat, “I’m getting the distinct impression that you haven’t told him. Poor little teenaged Hale wanting to mate for life. Take the bite, just take the bite, you’ll live forever with me,” the blue veins in her eyes grow brighter, “but it didn’t work, did it? Poor Paige dying a painful death in your arms. Rejecting the bite,” she suddenly sniffs the air between them, “fear, mmm, dear Derek Hale forgetting just one tiny important minuscule amount of information.”

There’s snarling clashing with the rushing in Stiles’ ears. Unable to move his head, unable to look away from the blue veins in her eyes, “let him go. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet. You’ll give me anything I want. What about this one? What about this mate? He’s so soft. He’s so young. He’s so hopeful. It’s so sick. I could do a lot with this one. Have you felt it yet mate? Have you felt the bite? Have you,” she sniffs at him again, “have you turned it down? That’s it, isn’t it? You turned it down. A Hale should know better than to mate with a human. A human who doesn’t even want it. A human pure of heart and pure of intention. Not even considering the bite just to live happily ever after with the love of his life. That must sting Derek,” there’s a sharp whimpering cry that cuts through the fog in Stiles’ head. It’s Derek. Derek who just made that noise, “it stings,” she smirks, the hand on Stiles’ throat rising to grasp his chin. Pain whooshing through his body at the release of the grip, “it stings,” repeating when she turns Stiles’ head and his eyes land on Derek. 

The bird has it’s talons lodged in his chest. Right over his heart, “it stings so good,” her voice is maggots wriggling in his flesh and Derek’s eyes are flashing red warnings, his claws fully unsheathed at his side.

“Let him go,” he manages to gasp out, “you have what you want Valentine. Let him go. I’ll give you everything,” his head turns, 1987A colliding with the Crab Nebula. A remnant of SN 1054. Blue surrounded by dust clouds of oranges and reds, greens and pinks slicing through the center and shattering. Derek’s eyes close, the sound emitting from his mouth is ear piercing and clenches hard enough in Stiles’ guts to force stomach acid up his throat and his eyes close, “let him go,” he hears whispering, punctured words by horrifying gasps of pain. 

Stiles’ jaw is clamped shut, his mouth feels like it’s thick with glue and his body is trembling beneath the touch of the witch, “good night sweet mate,” she whisper hisses in his ear. Swirls of red, orange, green, and finally blue space dust spinning violently in his lids before it’s all swallowed whole by a black hole. 

—————  
He wakes with his hands flailing towards Derek’s chest, knowing he’s beside him. He’s beside him. They fell asleep that way and that was just a bad dream. A bad dream he’ll tell Derek about and they’ll shrug it off and research the vampire bird and the demon witch just in case, but it didn’t happen. He knows it didn’t happen yet. 

His flailing hands are caught in the air, there’s something on his chest, must be Derek’s head. There’s something in his throat and he can’t breathe. The hands that are grasping his aren’t right. They’re not Derek’s. His eyes won’t focus and the sounds in here aren’t right. It’s not the loft. It’s white and too bright and too noisy with electronic noises and Derek hates white, it shoves too much light into his sensitive eyes and he hates the fans and buzz and whirring din of technology. 

The hands that are grasping his, the voice that’s trying to be soothing, it’s not Derek. Stiles opens his mouth, only to be reminded there’s something in it. 

“Hey son,” Dad, “just relax, try to relax. We’ll get that tube out as soon as we can, but you need to relax,” his eyes creased with worry, lined with tears. Hands calming, one wrapped around Stiles’ two, the other on his chest. Reassuring pressure over his heart, “calm. Stay calm. You’re okay,” but he’s not saying anything about Derek. He’s not saying anything about Derek. He’s dead. Derek is dead. The alpha red will only belong to the witch if she kills the alpha. He’s dead. 

—————

Melissa is standing beside the bed, with a giant ass needle in her hand like a threat, “I will stick you with this if you don’t stay calm.”

He nods, coughs and gags on the tube when they pull it and then stays calm. Doesn’t stay calm at all. Actually. His body is slow and weighed down with dull throbbing pain, but his mind is ready. Ready to find Derek even if it’s just his body. His eyes have to see the body. No matter the state of it. He has to see it. He has to feel him just once more to know he’s gone, that he’s not in there anymore. 

But Dad’s being a jerk, holding him down at the arms, leaning over him and reminding him, “calm.”

And Melissa waves that giant needle in front of his eyes and reminds him, “calm.”

That took a surprising amount of energy. So he’s calm. He is so calm. He’s just so calm. As calm as can be until they let up, then he tries again. This time getting as far as ripping the IV out of the crook of his elbow and then there’s a poke in his arm and her, “I warned you,” in his ear and the world is gone again.

—————

So take two, or is it three, on waking up in a hospital with Dad’s worried eyes and Melissa’s threatening needle? 

Now the IV is in the back of his hand. Making it feel like the skin in his hand is too tight for his bones and it’s so itchy. So itchy. But as soon as he reaches for it, his arm is grabbed, by his forearm, “calm,” Dad wills.

So his wrists are wrapped in bandages. Probably from being bound by that demon witch. 

“I am,” his voice is croaky and it hurts to swallow. Probably normal for having a tube in his throat for however long, “calm. Itchy,” why’s he sound so far away in his own ears? 

“That’s the sensitive skin adhesive,” Melissa mentions, “so you’re out of luck if that itches too,” she sets the needle on the metal tray beside the bed, her hand rises, slides along his face. He finds himself leaning into it. Just for a moment though. Mother’s touch. And he only allows himself to think of Mom for a moment. 

And then it’s, “Derek?”

“They’re hunting him, but haven’t found him yet,” Dad’s jaw clenches.

“What?” his body sits up quickly before he can tell it not to. And he’s pushed back down towards the bed by both of them, “who’s hunting him? What’s…”

“Don't try to protect him Stiles. Those are his claw marks in your throat,” Dad’s voice is firm. 

“What? No, not, no Dad. They’re not. There was a bird thing, that…”

“His claws in your shoulders too.”

“No! Dad, no! There was a bird. A human-sized bird with vampire fangs in it’s beak and there was a witch. A demon witch thing with black eyes that had blue lines in them and…”

“Stiles,” he sighs, one hand rising to rub over his forehead, “there are a lot of things I’ve believed in the last year that I’d never have believed before. But this?” his eyes meet Stiles’, they’re watery, “Derek is a wild animal. You can’t control that.”

“No, he’s not,” if he had the energy to get out of this hospital bed he’d be gone by now, “he’s not. He’s no less human than any of us.”

“He was born half wild, he’s not like the others. The others were humans first. Wolves second. Derek has been both since birth. Fighting for space inside one body. He’s a wild animal Stiles and I should have seen this coming. I should have…”

“No! Dad! Listen to me!” his head spins, the room blurs, and he can’t seem to get any air in his lungs. Past the holes in his throat and beyond the aching in his heart, “it wasn’t him,” it barely makes any noise coming past his lips. 

Fingers meet his cheeks, wiping off tears that he didn’t realize were falling, “you need more rest,” Melissa tells him softly. 

“No, no more needles. Please, I need, Dad, you need to believe me. I need to,” why is the room spinning again? Why is his face getting so blurry? 

Damn it. Another black hole. 

—————

It happened on the strawberry moon. It happened with a demon witch and a vampire bird man thing. 

It happened on the strawberry moon. And it happened to rip apart the one thing Stiles thought was indestructible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll let you in on a little secret... Derek is not dead. Otherwise I would take the major character death warning.


	9. The Tenth Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on the tenth day.

The Tenth Day

It happens on the tenth day. It happens in the dirt, charred remains, soft summer rain blowing through the destroyed structure. The structure that used to be home. The structure that used to be the warmth and love and support of a family. The home that became the brown sweater and the mug of hot chocolate. Home. The home that’s become his arms and his scent. His body heat and his inability to sit still. His nervous chattering and his soft lips. 

Home. This was home. Until it was taken away.

Home. He was home. But now Derek has make that go away. 

Home. A place. A person. They can be taken. He can’t protect it. He can only push it away.

It happens when he scents him on the damp summer breeze. 

“Derek?” it’s winded, scared. 

Derek doesn’t bother moving. Doesn’t bother getting up. Not even certain he can. 

“Derek, can I,” it halts, voice shaking. Stiles' heart is picking up speed, footsteps nearing. He can feel his body heat reaching out, gently caressing the back of Derek’s neck, “can I just,” he steps back. Walks across the room. Pushing his hand through his hair, “you’re not healing.”

Derek knows every single pattern that Stiles has. Every nervous tick and every beat of his heart. He knows every scent and every breath. 

Derek knows he can’t stay quiet. Never for more than three seconds at a time. And it’s been three seconds. 

He’s still quiet. But he’s moving. Slowly approaching like Derek is a wounded animal. He crouches down behind him, “hey big guy, I’m just gonna,” his voice is filtering in, barely weaving it’s way around all the other voices in Derek’s head. All the reminders of all the ways he’s always screwed up, all the people he’s hurt, all the people he’s gotten killed, all the lives ruined, “just gonna lay down here. Right behind you. I’m just, yep, just gonna lay down in the black blood and,” it shakes, “I’m gonna feel your pulse. Just two fingers, just right here on your neck. And just,” it chokes off, he can hear a hard thud of his heart over the rushing in his own ears, “just gonna lay here. And just,” he brings himself closer. Close enough to touch. His arm resting over top of Derek’s, hand on his neck, remaining at his pulse point.

He falls silent, but the traffic jam in his head is invading Derek’s ears. He takes a deep breath, nothing more than weakness in his body, barely able to whisper, “you need to leave Stiles.”

“No,” his heart thuds hard enough that Derek feels it against his back, “too late for that,” his breath travels in a burst of damp heat against Derek’s neck. 

The human wants him to leave on his own, reason with him, tell him he has no choice to stay. The wolf knows he’s going to have to give chase, “you cannot be here. You cannot be with me. You need to leave.”

“Not happening,” deep breath. He’s getting braver, taking the last of Derek’s strength, breathing it in. Derek will let him have that. It’s the least he can do for him. His arm slips around Derek’s chest, hand landing palm down on his heart. His thumb sliding back and forth, back and forth, “talk to me. Say something. Tell me what the hell happened. Who the hell that was. What she wanted from you. What she got from you. Tell me something, anything. Please Derek. It took so much to convince my dad that you didn’t hurt me, that it was some demon witch lady and her vampire bird. What the hell was that thing? What did they do? I remember falling asleep at your place, and the next thing I was waking up with that bird thing in my face,” his face turns like he’s wiping snot on Derek’s shoulder, “say something. Something other than telling me to leave.”

He waits. For about as long as Stiles can stand silence. Which is all of five seconds, “so,” his fingers tap over Derek’s chest, not realizing that every move he makes sends unbearable pain through Derek’s core, “probably going to have a couple pretty badass scars, you know, when the stitches come out in a few days, and uh, well, if you’re into that sort of thing anyway. I hear chicks dig scars, not that it matters. Just I guess if you dig scars or Derek, just,” deep breath.

Derek’s eyes close, feeling his warm hand draw back from his chest, he’s peering over Derek’s shoulder now. Looking at the black blood on his hand. Pale beautiful fingers with oily black blood smeared across them. His breath shakes, heart wrenches and Derek gasps.

“You can’t stay out here forever. C’mon, let’s get you up,” it’s shaking but he’s holding his heart steady, “where were you? Scott, Isaac, Cora. They’ve been running ragged looking for you. Even Peter says he looked. But I don’t, I know he’s your uncle, but I don’t really believe much that comes out of his mouth. And you ever notice he’s just always hanging back when it’s time to act? He’ll plan and talk and run his mouth and act like he has all the wisdom in the world, but when the fight is at the door,” he stops suddenly. His face turns, lips resting against Derek’s shoulder, “they looked here. It’s kinda the most obvious place. Scott, he said, um, he said about three nights ago that he heard you. Um, he heard you dying,” he chokes off, squeezes his arm tight around Derek and his face lands against the back of his neck, “but you’re still breathing, for now. So can we just get you up? Get you out of here?”

His fingers tap against Derek’s chest again, “this thing on? Echo, echo, echo,” he tries a half-laugh but it breaks and his heart lurches, thick voice, “come on Derek. Anything. Please. You wanna die out here? That it? Die in the place you were born? Seems kind of romantically twisted and exactly the way you’d do it. Were you born here? Are wolves born on some special night? I mean, it’s not like your mother in full shift could just show up at a doctor, right? Or was she human for birth, I feel like that kind of pain would force shift, right? Or maybe she had some intense control. Were you born human or pup? Bet you were a cute pup. That’s stupid. You were both human. You said your first shift was puberty. Or were you born a pup and your first shift was to human form?!”

Finger tapping, his right foot is getting fidgety against Derek’s ankle. There’s a three second pause, “please Derek,” whispering against the back of his head. A shadow of a moonlit night, memory of pale skin, fingertips over every inch. 

He feels his head shake, forcing his voice out firm, “you need to leave.”

“Yeah I heard you the first ten times!” his hand flies off Derek’s chest, undoubtedly sliding over his forehead, through his hair. Deep breath, every muscle in his body tense, ready to get up and pace. Deep breath. Lemons. Stiles’ body adjusts, hand landing on Derek’s shoulder, pushing it back towards him. Derek doesn’t have to give in. Even weak, exhausted and waiting for the last breath, he could still maintain his position. But he gives in. Eyes remaining closed, flat on his back on the floor of the house he grew up in, Stiles leaning over him. One hand smoothing through his hair, sticky with blood. The other taking a tight grip on his chin, “look at me. Please.”

He knows what he’s going to see when he opens his eyes. He’s going to see a cozy brown sweater and a warm cup of cocoa. Maybe he can allow himself one last glimpse. Maybe. His human knows he shouldn’t, that it’ll never work, he’ll never be able to scare him off if he keeps allowing himself to love. His wolf, his wolf is weak. Stupid. Reckless. 

Stiles’ hand slides across his cheek, he’s gentle and he’s hopeful. Innocent. Warm rays of sunshine on a cool Autumn day. Too good to last.

His eyes flit open, it looks like home, but Stiles can’t hide the cringe even if it’s short, “hi,” he tightens his grip when Derek tries to turn his head, “stay here,” a crooked smile, thumb sliding over his cheek again, “you can’t blame yourself for that. Whatever that bird thing was and his witch, that wasn’t your fault Derek. You promised you’d never push me away to keep me safe. I’m just an idiotic puppy that’ll keep coming back anyway.”

The lemon scent is thinning, it’s twisted into worry, pain. Derek put that there. Derek put that there. And he hates himself for it. 

It happens on the tenth day. The tenth day after the white witch and her lightning bird took his mate. It happens on the tenth day. And Derek hates himself for it.


	10. A Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a Thursday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, playing fast and loose with canon rules. Also with mythology :)

A Thursday

It happens on a Thursday. It happens when Deaton says, “we have to get him to the hospital.”

“Well, yeah, but when he starts healing himself…”

Scott’s hands come down on Stiles’ shoulders. Gently, avoiding the stitched skin covered with bandages, “he’s too weak to heal himself.”

“That’s why we brought him here! If Derek wakes up in a hospital with all that machine noise and all the whiteness, he's going to lose it. What happens when he gets strong enough to start healing and he’s in the middle of surgery?” rage and terror are broiling beneath the surface of his flesh, threatening to burn it off, “you’re the emissary!” his voice only shakes a little and maybe squeaks at the end, “so do your emissary stuff and…”

“Stiles,” Deaton sighs, his eyes scanning over Derek’s unconscious mass first, then landing on Stiles’, “you said he has a silver vein in his eyes even in his human form,” his hand gestures towards the chest x-ray, “his heart is encased in silver. There’s nothing we can do but make him more comfortable. I’m sorry, this is…”

“Bullshit! It’s bullshit and you know it! Silver only kills the wolf if it’s injected by someone who loves them well enough to understand them! That witch, clearly doesn’t love him. Silver has antibiotic qualities right? That’s the belief, that lycanthropy is blood born, and silver is the cure. So it’s toxic to the supposed virus, but we know it’s not a virus! Scott, come on, man, this is…”

“There is a theory that silver makes the werewolf stronger. That it’s toxicity was only a rumor spread by the wolves,” Deaton has his chin rested on his fisted hand, the other arm crossed over his chest, “but Derek has to want to heal. He’s not even attempting to heal.”

“What’s the thing about wolves in the wild, they bring the injured member food and comfort. The rest of the pack protects the injured wolf. Ease his pain, do whatever they can.”

Scott’s hand has landed on Derek’s forearm, but the black ink isn’t rising in his veins. His grip tightens, his face screws up with confusion, “I can’t take his pain.”

“He’s not letting you.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes when an alpha deems himself a failure to the pack or to his mate, he’ll cast himself out. He won’t allow the pack to take him back in.”

“Well he can’t exactly get up and run away from us, so what do we do?” Stiles’ hand flails out in front of him, crosses over his chest again, then tucks into his armpit to trap it from doing something stupid, “how do we convince him he hasn’t failed?”

“Well, he kind of has,” Peter.

Fucking Peter. But Stiles doesn’t startle. Not at all. That’s not something he would do when creepy sometimes evil but sometimes insightful Peter just appears out of thin air.

“His little mating announcement last month. Having an alpha mate can make a pack more powerful, more cohesive of a unit, but Derek should know better. Better than a human,” his eyes are showing open disdain for Stiles as he scans him over. Dropping next to Derek, without changing expression, “he never really was Thalia’s brightest child. Shame,” his hand darts out, taking hold of Derek’s wrist. His body jolts as though he’s being shocked by electric currents, pulses of black ink rising though his arm, into his neck, across his face. His breath is held, his eyes bug, shift to his blue wolf eyes. 

Scott moves like he’s going to stop him, but Deaton’s hand rises like a stop sign, “wait.”

The room is locked into a holding pattern. Like time has ceased to exist. Knowing they should act but not wanting to. If Peter overdoes it and kills himself, it’s not exactly a loss. And maybe it’ll be enough to jump start Derek’s healing. But there’s an edge in the room, like he’s committing suicide and they should stop him. Even if they don’t really like him, it’s still the normal human response to keep a person from dying if possible. 

An electric pulse in the air, Scott’s eyes flash beta gold though he looks like he’s fighting a shift. Stiles’ body is forced back a step and Deaton’s mouth opens, hangs that way for a moment like he’s trying to find words but there are none.

Eardrum shattering pressure makes Scott yelp when Peter finally stumbles drunkenly, body weak. Scott’s hands rise instinctively to steady him on his feet. His head is hanging low but when it rises he’s got a smile on his face, “well played Derek. Well played. I suppose I deserved that,” amused and exhausted, allowing Scott to steer him towards a stool, “argent, French for silver. I believe you know the Argent family history,” gaze drifting to Scott, “the Argents are the silver that killed the werewolves. It’s only been twisted in legend and lore. You’re partially right about silver making wolves stronger. Problem is, our friendly umlingo omhlophe and her lightning bird have swallowed Derek’s alpha essence, they too will feed off the strength of the silver unless they are destroyed before Derek heals.”

“But what if he dies first?”

Peter shrugs, “then I suppose she’ll just move along to the next alpha, try her experiment over again.”

“How do we stop the witch?”

“We stop her soon. And we stop her as a pack,” he cringes when he says it, then his focus lands on Stiles, “you however, dear mate, will be staying here.”

“But I…”

“No,” he snarls it, his eyes flash wolf blue, “if you want Derek to live, you stay here,” he’s speaking like he’s not sure if he wants to be in on any of this, or if it’s just pack obligation or maybe an obligation to his dead sister or his nearly dead nephew. Either way, Peter might not be the most trustworthy person but he does still have pack nature somewhere in there. And Derek is his pack, whether he wants it or not.

—————

It happens on a Thursday. It happens when the rest of the pack is hunting a demon witch and a vampire bird. It happens when Deaton is mixing some kind of paste to put on Derek’s weeping chest wounds. It happens when Derek’s hand is limp in Stiles’ hand. 

A sudden storm rolls in. Raging and wicked. Angry drops of rain spattering against the building. The sound of thunder ravenous and lightning so bright it rips the sky into shreds. 

“The lightning bird,” Deaton whispers, his eyes scanning the room, waiting. He’s waiting. Knowing more than he’s going to speak. Understanding more than he’s going to share. He’s calm. 

Stiles is calm too. He sure is. He’s not drumming his fingers on the back of Derek’s hand. And his leg isn’t bouncing. And he’s not ready to peel his skin off and take off running. He’s not scratching at his own healing wounds, or poking a nosy finger into Derek’s black oozing sores. 

Stiles is totally calm. And he stays that way when a pealing of howls and screeches echoes around the thunder. When a zap of lightning bursts through the door of the clinic, knocking everything off the walls, sending shards of glass across the floor. 

He finds his body mid-throwing itself over Derek when Deaton pushes him to the side. The table Derek is lying on is lit up, like it’s glowing from within. Deaton’s arm over Stiles’ face to keep him protected from flying debris. He wants to fight it, wants to push him off and cover Derek but when the first flash of blinding light recedes and his eyes land on Derek, he realizes that the glowing of the table isn’t coming from the table. It’s not coming from the reflections of the lighting either. It’s coming from Derek. 

“Is this some kind of messed up angel joke? ‘Cause under all that broody pouty hiding in dark corners man is actually a strangely sweet person, but an angel? No way,” he feels his mouth drop open and stay that way when Derek’s body stats levitating. Yeah. Levitating. With lightning zapping around him, tiny little bolts of lightning, “this is totally happening. Is he Thor now?”

“No,” Deaton has to shout to be heard over all the racket, “the witch’s plan is backfiring. She thought she could absorb his power even after he got away from her, but now that she’s linked them and is dying herself instead, he’s absorbing her power.”

“Wait. You’re telling me he’s going to be a demon witch werepirebird now?”

Deaton actually looks confused. That might be a first, “I guess we won’t know until he,” his voice cut off by a giant boom of thunder that shakes the ground beneath them and maybe the entire world. 

When the aftershocks finally stop from the demon witch werepirebird Derek, and Stiles’ head finally stops ringing, vision jumping from one corner of the room to the next, every single overturned table and broken shelf, bottle, veterinary equipment; eyes taking inventory of it all but no Derek.

“Derek!” clamoring over the pile of debris to shoot his body through the broken door. Stiles’ heart throws itself so hard at his ribcage it nearly knocks him over when he catches sight of a wolf running full tilt down the road, little lightning bolts that are more like shocks of static electricity bursting from his fur, “Derek!” the wolf looks over his shoulder at the top of the rise in the street, just long enough for Stiles to catch a glimpse of silver and blue eyes before he disappears into the night, “what the hell Derek?”

—————

It happens when the pack returns, nursing wounds and helping each other into the clinic that Stiles and Deaton are attempting to clean. They’ve defeated the witch and her bird but it’s hard to tell who won with all the healing that’s going to have to happen in the next few hours. Maybe days. 

It happens when the theories start pouring out about who the witch was, if it was only power that she wanted from Derek, if the bird can be resurrected and taken by a new owner. If Derek’s self-induced comatose state that he allowed Peter into was his way of controlling her, keeping her in Beacon Hills long enough for the pack to hunt her down. If being a full shift wolf now is something Derek is strong enough to control. What other powers he may have absorbed in the process. If the silver surrounding his heart will kill him anyway.

It happens when Stiles steps outside to get some air. Feeling an aching twitch in his core that this may be the last time he sees Derek. Whether he dies from the overload of power, or the silver, or just exiles himself thinking he’s a failure. There was buzz about Cora having seen a flash of red in Scott’s eyes when he cut through the witch’s protective bubble with his claws. Something about a true alpha. Stiles supposes the pack is in good hands if Scott is the true alpha, but that doesn’t stop the cracking and breaking of his heart as he stands outside the destroyed animal clinic watching the sky turn shades of morning. His hands shoved in his pockets, his right fingers meet the fidget ball that Derek gave him for his eighteenth birthday just a couple months ago. A series of aluminum rings linked together for turning and clinking, the smooth metal soothing and the sound of it was much less intrusive than clicking a pen or snapping and unsnapping the pocket of his shirt over and over and over again every time he wore shirt with snaps. Snap, snap, snap in his head like a rubber band on his wrist reminding him not to obsess. Not that it ever worked, he’d just snap the rubber band over and over again, learning to like the sound of it and not being bothered by the self-induced slap on his wrist. After his mom died. Some therapist his dad took him to a few times after the first panic attack, the rubber band was supposed to be a snap to remind his brain to hop off the anxiety train before it could reach the panic station. His dad made him stop wearing them after a couple months and took him to a different therapist, when he realized the rubber bands were just something he was fixating on instead of addressing any of the underlying emotions or whatever his dad was also doing by drinking. So he really had no room to judge. 

Stiles removes the ball from his pocket, laying it in the palm of his left hand, watching his right fingers slide over a few rings. Turning them slowly. Taking a deep breath and listening intently to the noise it makes, trying to discern some kind of pattern. Maybe Derek will hear it. Maybe he’s not out of range yet. Maybe he can remember enough morse code to tap Derek a ‘come home’ message before he gets lost in his new form and ends up feral, a lone wolf, or maybe even integrating himself into a wolf pack in the wild. 

“Come on Derek,” Stiles hears his own voice, weak and quiet in the darkness of the early morning, “come home.”


	11. A Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a Friday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is where that break-up tag comes to the surface.

A Friday

It happens on a Friday. It happens with a full shift that Derek never knew himself capable of. Sure, it’s in his genes. His mother was one of the most powerful and well respected wolves of her time. He thought maybe Laura one day. Laura seemed like the one that would do it. 

Then. She seemed like that back then. Before. 

It happens on a Friday. Derek remembers immense pain, like everything outside his body was being zapped by unbearable electric currents and everything inside his body was turning to mush. 

He remembers running from the clinic, the sound of Stiles’ fidget ball clinking somewhere in his subconsciousness. Maybe a memory. Maybe a memory of a sound. Maybe the sound of a the nights spent in Derek’s bed lying on his back, fidgeting with the soothing sounds of the aluminum rings while he breathed and thought and his mind sounded somewhere between a traffic jam and waves rolling in off the ocean. Loud but controlled. Moving back and forth and not standing still. No chaos in the stillness, but a fluid, rhythmic thought process. Sometimes he’d end up talking. Talking to Derek about his mother. About his father’s drinking habits in the years to follow. About his friendship with Scott being such an important factor to his life at a time when he was otherwise alone. Sometimes he’d talk. Talk about the things that neither of them wanted to talk about. The things that there are too many words for but never enough to explain. 

And sometimes. Sometimes he’d fidget and clink and his face was soft and his breathing was soft and he’d not talk. He’d not talk at all. Not with words. Not with his usual hand flailing and fighting the pull of his body to keep moving. Keep moving. Sometimes he’d talk with a warm brush of lips on Derek’s shoulder. The softness lingering there even as it moved across his collarbone, towards his neck. Down his chest and stomach. He’d usually stop there, slide the fidget ball in his jeans pocket and then wait for Derek to shove the jeans off. Discarded on the floor where they’d wait for the soft light of morning before Stiles would put them back on. Run his fingers over the fidget ball and leave for school with a contented smell like nutmeg clinging to him. 

Derek doesn’t stop running until his legs force him to. Until the hunger in his belly forces him to. Until he can’t take another step without collapsing. 

When he gives in, he drops to his belly. Letting his eyes wander the woods around him. Not knowing where he is, how far he’s run, or even who he is anymore. Maybe he’s never known who he is. One thing is clear. One thing only. He never should have dragged Stiles into this.

His senses feel keener than they ever have. Even more so than alpha werewolf senses. He can hear every single critter in the woods around him. He can smell every single part of the world around him. Lingering on his own right hand is Stiles, the unmistakable scent of his mate. It stings, aches, and torches him from the inside out when he raises the paw to his face, licking it clean from dirt and leaves. Taking in the last remaining feel of his mate, his former mate, taking it in and washing it away. Knowing it can’t be his. Never should have been. He never should have allowed it. And he certainly never should have announced it like the reckless idiot that he is. Announcing happiness can only do one thing and Derek should have known that, all it can do it put a target on his back. A target on him and his pack. 

He follows his ears to a stream, slinking over for a drink. He pauses when he sees his own reflection. Already knowing he’d shifted, but being confronted with the image is something else entirely. He’s reminded of his mother when he sees himself. A rush of images, moments. Her words echoing around in his mind. The one that keeps making it’s way to the surface, ‘blue but just as beautiful’, and he wonders what she’d think now. How much of a disappointment he truly is. His own recklessness and poor choices in love got his entire family burned to death. His hunger for power and revenge taking the life of his uncle. Building his own pack, trying to do the right things for them and getting half of them killed anyway. And now this. 

Blue but just as beautiful. The slow moving water showing blue and silver reflections whispering viscously that it was a lie. It’s a lie now and it was a lie then. Sixteen year old Derek being manipulated and letting Peter get in his head about Paige, having convinced himself that she was his mate, his one and only, his life partner; having to take her life in the end. Ending her pain. There is nothing beautiful about the death of a teenager, a mate. 

Derek convinced himself after Paige that he’d never love again. He’d never allow his wolf the pleasure of mating. He’d belong to his family pack and he’d never forge out on his own, he’d never make a play at alpha, he’d always accept his fate as a failed beta and he’d be there when they needed him but he’d never lead and he’d never have happiness beyond his role in the pack. 

And then there was Kate. And she was dangerously sexy and tenacious in her quest for Derek. There was something safe in her lack of innocence. Like nothing Derek could do would ever shock her or scare her off. Like maybe, maybe he could be himself, his full self in front of her and she’d not be afraid or think him grotesque. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

He lost. He lost it all because of her. Because of his own weakness and recklessness. Family. Pack. Home. It was all gone. Just like that.

A lone wolf is a vulnerable wolf. A lone human is safe. A lone human cannot be touched. Cannot be loved. Cannot be hurt.

It was only Laura that brought him back to Beacon Hills.

And it was only that stupid kid with all his fidgeting and restlessness that made his heart skip a little faster. And he could blame that on anything else, everything else surrounding them. An alpha that needed to be controlled. A new wolf that needed to learn control. Christ, being arrested and being saddled with responsibilities that he never wanted and told himself he’d never have. Like a beta in need of guidance. And a stupid human who smelled like lemons and had a knack for getting himself into trouble and somehow at the same time showing up just when Derek needed him. 

If Derek is honest with himself it was the blissful ignorance of that lemon scented traffic jam that kept him coming back even then, right from the start. Wanting to keep him safe. For whatever godawful instinctual part of him that he couldn’t drown with logic, his wolf was already preening every single time he caught a whiff of Stiles in the air. 

His wolf, he reminds his reflection in the stream, is an idiot. 

—————

It happens on a Friday. Two weeks after the witch and her bird are defeated. Two weeks that Derek has spent as a wolf. A lone wolf in the woods, chasing prey, slinking around in shadows, running wild with the wind, leaves, soft scent of summer in his nose, Earth at his feet and the feeling of freedom in his veins. But it happens on a Friday. A Friday when something pulls him back to Beacon Hills. Something in his soul drawing him back. Back to a place he used to call home. He’s called home for different reasons at different times in his life. 

And the last place he called home is standing in the burnt shell of the first place he called home when he returns. 

The last place he called home sounds like a traffic jam and smells like lemon spritzed water and relief when his eyes catch sight of Derek. The last place he called home mingling with the scents of death and charred remains making his stomach churn and his legs shake.

“Derek,” Stiles breathes softly, right hand in his pocket, left hand in the air uncertain of whether to extend or tuck. Derek’s wolf wants it to extend, he wants it in the space between them so he can sniff and kiss and nudge against it until it lands on his head and runs over his ears, his back until he’s wriggling beneath the soft strength of those hands on his belly. The man needs to tell Stiles to leave. Run. Get to his internship and forget any of this. All of this.

He settles. They settle. Settle for sitting back on his haunches. Stiles’ eyes are wide and prickled with tears of relief, lingering on Derek’s eyes. He clears his throat, lowers himself into a squat, hands on his knees, the right one tapping a quick pattern on the back of the left one. Derek feels his head turning, listening with his right ear, then his left. Trying for just a moment to decipher a pattern, a code, a message in the tapping. The man makes it stop. 

“You’re beautiful,” Stiles whispers softly, his right hand decides to turn. Palm up, in the space between them.

Derek’s wolf wants to pounce him, attack him with kisses, nuzzle into his neck until he falls on his back. Wants to lie on top of him and press body to body, sniff every single inch of him and make certain he still smells like mate and he’s okay, his wounds have healed and he’s happy. The wolf wants to bathe himself in the scent of Stiles. Make sure he’s loaded with it, so everyone knows who he belongs to.

But the man forces his body back. Forces him to back away. He’s not beautiful. Nothing about him is. Nothing inside or out. 

“Right, okay,” his hand retracts, staying low, “you’re full wolf. Have you been for the last two weeks? Probably. Peter said that the full shift to wolf is harder to, you know, it takes more energy and it’s harder to shift back to human. Especially at first and it’s different, it’s not something that anger can anchor anymore. It’s, it’s different,” he blinks hard like he’s trying to make this image go away.

Derek sees a warm cup of cocoa on a cold winter day. He sees a soft brown sweater. And a trickle of salty liquid, a lone tear, sliding out of the corner of Stiles’ eye before his hand rises to flick it away, “you did a good job of throwing them off your trail,” suddenly he’s on his butt on the dirty floor. Drawing his knees to his chest, breath shaking, “you didn’t want to be found. Did you?” breath shaking, “this stuff wasn’t your fault Derek. I hope you know that. I,” it stumbles and his hand rises to wipe his face, “remember when you promised you wouldn’t push me away to keep me safe?”

The wolf is whimpering, wanting to tell him it’s not his fault. It’s not Derek’s fault, it’s not Stiles’ fault, it’s just the circumstance. It’s just the world they live in. It’s just society and supernatural creatures. The wolf wants to chase down a buck and leave it at Stiles’ feet, wants to dig a den and drag him in, wants to burry himself inside Stiles and make him only suitable for him for the rest of his life. The wolf wants to never be alone.

He’s only mildly aware of it. When it happens. When his body follows his mind and the man takes over. When his four legs become two arms and two legs. When his fur lays down and becomes bare flash speckled with human body hair. When his snout draws back into a nose and his teeth dull. His head aches and his body quivers but his voice is strong though it hasn’t been used in two weeks, “it was a lie.”

Stiles face is open in astonishment. Watching the transformation happen right in front of him. Then he’s taken aback by the words. His body having begun to lean in, wanting to fling himself at Derek. The words parting Derek’s lips a heavy hand to his chest to keep him still, keep him back, keep him away, “it was a lie. I can’t keep you safe. And I can’t keep you near.”

“But I, I can pass on the internship and still…”

“No.”

“It won’t make a difference, not a real one, I was just in the hospital, it’s not like anyone can fault me for putting it off for medical reasons.”

“No. Stiles. No. You’re leaving. You’re going tomorrow. You have a future. A real one. As a human being. Without all the,” his voice shakes now. He pauses, the tears stinging Stiles’ eyes like daggers in Derek’s chest, “without me and all the problems I’ve brought. You have a real life ahead of you. You’re going.”

“Eventually, sure. Yeah, but not now. Not when you’re…”

“No!” he shouts it this time. The noise level making Stiles reel back as though he slapped him across the face, “you are leaving. It won’t take long to forget this,” he motions in the air between them, “you and me. Whatever we were. It’s over. And you’ll move on soon enough. And maybe some years down the road when you’re married and raising a family, you’ll laugh when you think back on the idiocy of all of this,” his face might be trying to smile. Trying to dull the sharp edges of his words, but his heart is shattering into a million pieces of a silver mirror in his chest. Dropping to his stomach and piercing his guts, “you have to go. You have to go now. And you have to never look back.”

“Derek,” he adjusts like he’s about to get up, about to approach, “that’s…”

“I will bite you Stiles,” he bares his teeth, “I will bite you if you don’t turn around and leave right now. Go home. Pack your bags. Get on your flight tomorrow.”

“I,” he starts, his eyes drop to Derek’s fangs. Face twists in some kind of horrific pain that Derek has never seen before. It makes his stomach reel and his heart thud so hard he can barely breathe. Stiles' eyes hide behind closed lids for a moment, he breathes, the emotion so thick it’s like breathing subzero air in harsh gasps. Burning it’s way down his throat and freezing his lungs, making it impossible to talk, impossible to get any air past the metallic taste in his mouth. Stiles gets to his feet, backs away slowly like he’s afraid Derek might pounce. His eyes are flat, dark and empty. A freshly dug grave in the bitter void of late Autumn, “I know you’re doing this because you love me,” he juts out his chin. Putting on his brave face, “but I hate you Derek. And I hope you always remember that.”

He nods. The wolf is howling in pain, wanting to chase, wanting to crash, wanting to lick his apologies into his cheeks and his ears and his neck. The man is nodding. The man is holding it together. Until it all crashes down around him. 

He listens to the Jeep’s engine turning. He listens to the beat of Stiles’ heart that he knows is broken. He listens to him breathing in cut off gasps. He listens to him clenching the steering wheel. Knowing he’s watching the house. Hoping that Derek will emerge and do something. Anything to make this right. To make this make sense. Anything. 

He listens as a frustrated, angry gasp parts Stiles’ lips, as the aluminum ringed ball hits the door of the charred structure. He listens as the Jeep is jammed in reverse, thrown into gear and kicking up dirt and gravel on his way out. His way out of this prison that Derek is doomed to for the rest of his life. This prison of Beacon Hills. Of genetics. Of creatures that were once only in fairy tales. This prison of always being the things he never wanted to be.

Derek is slow on his feet. Feeling the soles of human feet on broken glass, burned boards, and disintegrated home. He’s slow approaching the doorway. Bending to retrieve the fidget ball. 

It happens on a Friday. It happens with the thinning scent of his mate dissipating in the air around him. Lifting away from his soul and disappearing into the world where he belongs. It happens with the soothing aluminum of the only gift he ever gave him. It happens with the world weighing heavy, too heavy on his sternum. 

It happens on a Friday. It happens when he tilts his head back. Let’s his wolf take over. Feels himself shift back to his natural state. It happens on a Friday. It happens with an anguished howl and a broken heart.


	12. The Worst Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on the worst days.

The Worst Days

It happens on the worst days. The days when Stiles spent the night before wide awake. Staring at the ceiling and every time he closes his eyes he’s back in Derek’s bed. Every time his mind wanders, it wanders to Derek. 

It happens on the worst days. When the memories won’t fade. They cling. Cling like ghosts in the air around him and he doesn’t know how to quiet them and he doesn’t know how to turn it all off and make it all go away. 

It happens on the worst days when he tries to mute it all with a drink. A drink at a club. A drink at a bar. A drink that turns into a random fuck. A drink that turns into a woman who can’t satisfy his wants. A drink that turns into a man that can’t ever compare. 

It happens on the worst days. When every inch of his skin yearns for Derek’s lips, Derek’s tongue, Derek’s sweat mingling with his own, Derek’s whisper soft sighs trailing through his hair, Derek’s lips lingering on his throat. Derek’s hands clamped down on his hips. Derek’s kisses following the map of Stiles’ body that only Derek could decipher. Maybe he made the damn thing. 

He heard it. When he was leaving. He heard that pathetic howl. Stiles doesn’t speak wolf. But he knew that was a mourning howl. It turned his veins into steel and his anger into determination. Derek made a choice. He made his choice that day and it was his to live with. So Stiles clamped his jaw until it ached, his clenched his fists until there were crescents in his palm and he kept moving. He kept moving through the muck that felt like it was up to his chest most days. He kept moving though the memorie,s that no matter how brief, were wrapped around his heart like the silver encasing Derek’s. He kept moving. 

That steel and determination got him through his bachelor’s degree in only two years. It got him into the academy and graduated at the top of his class. it got him a spot in the FBI in the middle of the food chain. An accelerated trajectory that his director has been thoroughly impressed with. As made clear by all the useless commendations and bureau awards they keep handing him. 

And it still happens on the worst days. The days when the images are branded to his brain like the scar on his side, or the ones on his neck and shoulders. Having to tell everyone it was an encounter with a mountain lion and a random burn from a drunken night of play fighting around a bonfire. Men and women alike get a thrill from that story. Tracing fingertips over the scars like they can feel the pain for themselves as he speaks. But it never takes long before he’s steering the hand off his flesh and his skin is crawling. 

He can throw himself into his job. He can throw himself into women. He can allow men to throw themselves into him. But he can’t shake it. 

Sometimes when he’s out for a jog he can still hear Derek breathing on his neck. He can feel the heat of his body lingering at his back. Only the sound of his own feet crashing through the Preserve, Derek not making a single noise as he chased him down in their training sessions. But Stiles isn’t there anymore. He’s not in the Preserve. He’s not in Beacon Hills. He’s not even in California. 

It’s been six fucking years and he still can’t outrun his presence. 

Stiles distanced himself from most of the pack. But not Scott. He’d never be able to shake his friendship with Scott no matter how many miles between them. Scott won’t mention it, won’t discuss pack details with Stiles but always makes certain to make him welcome whenever he visits Beacon Hills. Home. Whenever he visits home. He tries not to. He tries to stay away. But his dad, his dad will never stop needing Stiles. As the years move on he finds himself lonesome for the little things about home. The little things that a phone call, a video chat, a visit from his dad or from Scott can’t replace. Like the way his childhood bedroom door squeaks, or the way the stairs talk, how they always tattled on him when he snuck out at night. He misses the feel of Beacon Hills, the energy of the supernatural that was always lingering there even before they knew about it. He misses the familiar faces, sights, and sounds. And maybe he misses the thrill of chasing the supernatural. As many human formed bad people or good people who did bad things or evil people or however many different shades of criminal there are, however many cases he’s worked and however many criminals he’s gotten off the street; it just isn’t the same. 

When he gets the offer to move permanently to California, he takes it. It’s not Beacon Hills, but it’s not far away either. He convinces himself that it’s not going to smell, feel, and look like Derek. He convinces himself that he won’t randomly run into him. He convinces himself that even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. None of it matters.

—————

Stiles is not entirely surprised when he hears of animal induced deaths in the area being on the rise. The ME has deemed them wolf attacks mainly. Which is strange and all since the only known wolf pack in California is located in Lassen County. And these attacks have been scattered throughout the West Coast, even into Oregon, Washington and Stiles is going to have to contact some Canadian authorities and get as much information as he can. Thing that’s weird, like really weird about it, these aren’t random targets. As far as anything Stiles can tell, nothing flashes any supernatural warnings at him from the dead bodies. A couple ex-cons. Some seedy seeming people with juvie records. Some people with cases pending or dropped. 

His first stop is Scott. Of course it is. And he has to be at least mildly vague about it all. Like, “what’s the pack been up to? Any demons popping up in Beacon Hills lately? Any alpha packs? Any actual wolves in the Preserve?”

“Not much,” he shrugs. Helpful as always.

“It’s okay, you can tell me stuff. I’m off the clock and my badge is put away, I’m just a civilian.”

“Nothing to say really. You’re still in touch with Lydia so you know her and Jackson are still in Paris. Allison just finished all the licensing for her hunting lodge that her and her dad are opening. And no, they won’t be teaching werewolf killing classes,” his crooked smile rises, “mostly target practice and such. Getting people familiar with firearms in ways that the concealed weapons permit classes don’t before sending them off with a pistol in their pockets. And hunting laws classes, you know, doing it all legally and respectfully. Kill to eat kind of thing,” he shrugs, “last anyone heard from Peter he was in Mexico. Cora and Isaac are still here. Both in school, but…”

“Okay Scott, just get to it. The juicy details. What’s been going on since I’ve been gone? What kind of mythical creatures have been drawn to town? What’s the latest pack business? What’s with the wolf attacks, you know, the dead bodies up and down the coast? Who were they? What were they possessed by? What was…”

His face is giving a clear answer without him even having to say, “I haven’t heard anything about dead bodies,” concern starting to break into his features, “do you think, are you thinking Derek?” he whispers his name barely audibly like just the sound of it will send Stiles into some kind of panic attack or off on a killing spree or self-loathing spiral or churn up all the regret and anger that’s been lying dormant but not at all dormant in his system for six goddamn years. And maybe it is. Maybe hearing that name out loud for the first time in six goddamn years is causing a physical reaction that he can’t control.

“Do I smell like lemons?”

“Why? You get a taxi cab style air freshener for the Jeep?”

“No, just, Scott, what does my anxiety smell like to you?”

“You don’t think it’s Derek? I shouldn’t have said his name,” his hand lands on Stiles’ shoulder. A touch he wants to squirm away from, but only because his skin is getting crawly from being too hot and being too cold at the same time and his clothes are suddenly itchy and he’s pretty sure he’s suffocating, “if anyone has heard from or seen Derek since,” he trails off, clears his throat, “Cora maybe, but she’s been keeping her mouth shut if she has.”

For being a werewolf with all his precision senses and having grown up with Stiles and all his quirky things, Scott just isn’t very good at picking up on his social cues. The whole hand on the shoulder thing making him squirm and the talk of Derek making him want to claw his own skin off, but maybe that’s a good thing, maybe the way Scott has always treated him like he’s just a normal guy with normal responses to human things has always been a comfort. Stiles is not weird when he’s around Scott. Scott’s never made him feel different or out of place in his own skin. Even when his own skin is trying to tell him otherwise.

Stiles centers himself by taking note of any changes in Scott’s face since last time he saw him. Last time he saw him about six months ago. Not much changed since then. Really, in the grand scope of how much a man should change from the time he’s sixteen to the time he’s twenty-four, he’s not changed at all. The bite is a gift he supposes. Scott pretty much skipped over the last half of puberty as soon as he was bit and turned into a man overnight. Stiles is pretty sure sometimes he’s still in the grip of puberty himself. Being human is a gift. He’s certain of that. Not all gifts are good all the time.

“So Cora it is,” he finally hears his voice. Oh, isn’t that nice? He still has a voice under the taste of all those oxidized pennies. 

——————

Cora’s not as good at hiding her reaction to Stiles’ strong scent as Scott is. Her face scrunching up when she smirks, “nervous?”

“Look, it’s been awhile, okay?”

“Mmm hmm,” well, she’ll never stop being a Hale, arms crossed over her chest as she looks him over from head to toe, “you finally grew up.”

Stiles shifts from one foot to the other, “that’s enough, where’s Derek?” the name comes off his tongue like it’s stuck to the roof of his mouth, has to pry his teeth open and burn a hole in his lips on the way past.

Cora shrugs, face giving nothing away, “a lone wolf is hard to track.”

“Bullshit,” so now his body is going to act like he’s not afraid of a werewolf. Or a Halewolf. Or looking at the sister of the only guy he’s ever loved. Or stepping into her space and accusing her, “you know that’s bullshit Cora. Even without your wolfy senses you’d be able to track him down. He’s your brother.”

And her cold stare is just as effective as his. Damn it. Stiles takes a step back, but stays close. Doesn’t apologize for crowding her. Doesn’t break eye contact. Finally she rolls her eyes, “he sold his properties a few years back, including the old house. It’s part of the animal sanctuary Deaton runs now, all that’s left is the foundation. Last time I saw him,” and she’s not going to say how long ago that was, “he was building a place in the middle of nowhere. Next to a stream in a grove of big leaf maples,” she says it like it should mean something to Stiles. 

Scrolling through the rolodex in his head, yeah the old school way of organizing shit, because sometimes it’s easier to file these things on cards that can physically be touched and felt with his fingertips as he scans, holds them to the light, thinks he should get his vision checked and either comes up blank or remembers this. Remembers a whisper, a whisper through the thickness of a nightmare just beginning, a whisper that snaked into his ears and forced that nightmare to fold before it could play it’s hand, ‘you’re ankle deep in a slow-moving stream with the gentle wind brushing through maples overhead’. Okay, so those are things that probably should have creeped him out about sleeping with a werewolf, like he can just insert his voice into Stiles’ head at night, feel a tug of a nightmare and end it before it begins. The sound of his voice and whatever image he planted creating the soothing dreamscape he needed when he needed it. And maybe those are some of the things he misses the most. Things that were so simple for Derek that no one else has ever been able to do. 

—————

Well, the problem is, there are a ton of fucking tributary waters in California. Aside from obviously not in the desert, Stiles has a lot of damn land to cover and not much time off from work to do it. Doesn’t help that suddenly there are things that show up at his doorstep or at the office building’s front doors that help crack open a case when they thought all hope was lost. Things showing up at the courthouse, items just making themselves known suddenly out of thin air when a case can be made or broken off a single piece of evidence. And yeah, it’s even weirder when the video surveillance footage reveals it being dropped there by a damn bird. A bird! Not a blood-stained fanged werepire bird either. Thank fuck, because there is no way in Hell Stiles could explain that to his superiors. It’s weird enough that it’s a crow. Yeah, thanks Derek. A crow. And not just one crow either. One crow would suggest death, bad luck, catastrophic change. No. It’s two crows. One that drops the evidence as shown on the camera aimed at the door of the station, and one crow that keeps watch. As shown on the footage from the camera that’s aimed across the street from the station. Two crows. Two damn crows. Good luck, a major change for the better. Joy. One for sorrow. Two for joy.

And oh yeah, Stiles isn’t lost on the fact that crows mate for life either. Or too. They mate for life too. 

It happens on the worst days. It always seems like it happens on the worst days. The days when the case is at a complete standstill. When hope is being lost. When it seems like another shitty human being will get off scot-free after committing a crime that can’t be forgiven. But can’t be proven enough to put them away. It happens on the worst days. When that sign of a major change for the better shows up all black feathers and sleek bodied bold wings.

——————

So Stiles’ apartment is loaded with maps. Streams, tributaries, creeks, rivers, every single moving body of water on the entire damn state and most of them are pinned with a red pin. Showing he’s been there. He’s searched and scoured for wolf and human and house. And come up empty. 

Maps with crow flight patterns. How many miles they can fly overnight or in a certain amount of days to get to the station at the right time of the right day because everything Derek has ever done has had some kind of plan behind it. Whether the plan worked in the end, only time could tell, but he always had a plan. He always had good intentions. Good intentions can only get a person so far. 

Maps with dead bodies. Every single dead body recovered on the West Coast of the US and Canada in the last seven years. Seven goddamn years. Seven years since Derek turned into a full wolf and took off. Ran away like a coward and then chased Stiles away when he tracked him down. When he laid his heart on the floor of the charred home and hoped Derek would take it. 

——————

It happens on the worst days. The days when the moon was full the night before and Stiles can feel the pull of nature even in his thoroughly human body, like he wants himself to magically turn into a wolf and sniff down his long lost mate on the breeze of the silvery night. Every single part of nature and human and the world around him is pulling him to one thing and one thing only. Derek.

It happens on the worst days. The days that drag on like they’ll never end and he’s tracing every map in his head and he’s circling places he’s already circled before and he’s hunting maple trees and babbling brooks and wolf tracks and always coming up empty. He’s ready to tag Cora with a tracking collar by the time it happens. And it happens. It happens on the worst days. It happens with a crow, with two crows. It happens when the evidence they leave at his doorstep has nothing to do with any open cases. It has nothing to do with criminals. Or victims. Or broken laws and broken people. It happens when the evidence they leave is a fidget ball. A worn, well-used fidget ball. And a map. A hand-drawn map. 

It happens on the worst days. And it just so happens that the worst days don’t seem that bad anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know, I'm mildly obsessed with crows.


	13. The Best Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on the best days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: non-graphic violence and non-graphic death. I don't want to spoil the chapter but if you are bothered by Derek interrupting an attack on a child, then skip this one. Nothing graphic, the child does not get hurt in front of us, but she does have blood on her face already when we see her.

The Best Days

It happens on the best days. It happens when Derek is in full shift and allowing every single one of his wolf instincts to flood his brain and jolt his body through the woods. Allowing his nose to lead his way, his hunger to make his decisions, his need to run pave the path. It happens on the best days. The days that are simple. 

He loses himself in it. In the four legs, the furry body, the deep nature of everything he’s stifled and settled on because he had to be a man. He had to be a human. He had to have a normal life. 

it happens on the best days. Dirt beneath his feet. Nature surrounding him. Nothing and no person to rely on, or depend on. Only himself. No one can touch him.

It happens on the best days. When he doesn’t have to stifle and settle on anything. 

But there are days. More days than not. When his head is wrapped around that one four letter word that’s been on the tip of his tongue, under the skin of his hands, against the sweat on his chest, caressing every lobe of his brain both human and wolf, and lingering there like the only thing that ever mattered. Mate.

The best days when the world is nothing but wild. Untamed greens and blues. Browns that are dirt and dead leaves and never a warm sweater or a comforting mug of cocoa. The best days when the sounds invading his ears are only made by Mother Nature. Alone in a woods, on the peak of a mountain. Even by the ocean. He’s been everywhere. Lost in the wolf, found in the wolf. He’s travelled the coast and the National Parks. He’s been deep into Canada where there’s always snow on the ground. He’s felt the chill so cold it breaks in his throat and instantly freezes his snot, mists his breath as it pants out from between fangs. He’s curled himself into a hole to protect himself from the elements. He’s hidden from humans, he’s sniffed down grizzly bears. He’s never allowed himself to dream of a pack. To dream of a place to belong. To imagine how it’d feel to run wild with other wolves. 

They keep their distance from him. He’s not a lone wolf. Not in the sense of the vulnerable in nature lone wolf. He’s a human after all, and even on days that he can no longer sense that side of himself, a wolf pack can. 

It’s strange when he encounters birds. They seem to be the only creatures that accept both sides of him. They see the wolf, they sense the human. And they can fly away whenever they want. 

—————

It happens on the best days. Because even the best days can be cruel.

Derek stops for a drink in a creek in Oregon. Up wind he can scent a human, two different humans. And fear. The thick, heavy scent of fear. He tilts his head, left. Left to hone in on crunching of leaves under the heavy foot of a large human. Right to hone in on the whispering panted, “please, please let me go, my mom is going to call the cops when I don’t come home right after school,” and the feet being dragged through the forest floor.

Derek doesn’t have to consult his human anymore. His wolf acts. His wolf hears a human pup in danger and his wolf acts. 

The unmistakable scent of evil human nature. Sour and putrid like cadaverine. He hasn’t smelled that scent in years, maybe since the last time he was near Gerard. And sometimes on Kate, faint like she hadn’t grown into it yet. He should have known then. He was too young. He tells himself he was too young to know. 

But he isn’t anymore. Derek knows the scent of evil. And the wolf isn’t afraid to tear into it. Release it in the form of blood, gore, and death. He can feel it spray across his muzzle, enter his mouth, coat his tongue, and stick to the insides of his cheeks as he rips into it. Pyridine like a rotten tuna fish sandwich lighting up his taste buds. The sounds of torn human flesh. He makes it quick. He’s not one to kill for pleasure. He never has been. He never will be. 

This, this taste and this scent. This is the taste and scent of someone who does kill for pleasure. 

When he’s done, when the vibrations around him are lessening, and the invisible cloud of black writhing with maggots, death, and rot starts to dissipate; he sits back on his haunches. 

The girl can’t be more than ten years old. Clothes torn, blood smeared on her cheek from where it’s beaded on her lip. She’s sitting in the dirt, dead leaves. Knees drawn to her chest. Derek can’t hear the man anywhere inside him. But his wolf knows the man would be much scarier an image than the wolf in this moment, considering what a man just did to her. And imagining what that man was capable of doing if he'd accomplished his goal without Derek's interruption.

He waits, keeps his distance, watches her. Until her round brown eyes flit over to him. He lowers himself to his belly, showing he means her no harm. Relaxes his ears, his eyes. And waits. He waits until she reaches a dirty, blood-stained hand out. Palm up. 

He slides over, staying low. Wanting to remain shorter than her. Letting her know in as many ways as he can that he’s not going to hurt her. She’s in charge. He gets close enough to her hand that she can reach him. And he lays back down. Relaxed. Even if the lingering taste in his mouth is making his stomach churn and his urge to run to a creek and drink the entire thing is strong. He waits. Nudges her hand. Just a little. Just enough to touch, not enough to transfer any of the lingering blood on his coat to her flesh. 

One touch is all it takes. All it takes for the flood gates to open. Tears like a waterfall on her cheeks, the shaking in her body of a threat passed but not far gone. Both her hands reach out, taking Derek’s face by the scruff of his cheeks and pulling him towards her. He doesn’t resist. Letting her cry against his fur, wrap her arms around his neck. 

He stays near, he stays alert and he gives every single ounce of comfort that he can. When the shaking of fear and adrenaline wears off, when it becomes shaking of exhaustion, he nudges against her arm. Allowing her to settle, he’s going to keep her warm. It’s getting dark. The grey haze of dusk falling. He’ll keep watch. He’ll be able to hear the search party when they’re still a ways off. And he’ll leave then. When he’s certain they’ll find her. 

It’s an hour, maybe two since her breath has become soft. Since she’s succumbed to sleep when he hears them. Calling out her name. He hears the search dogs. They’ll scare off if they catch his scent too strong. It may be too late to worry about that. 

He licks her hand, licks it gently until she stirs. She’ll have to call out. He won’t leave until she calls out, until someone in the search party hears her. He nudges her face, tilts his head towards the sounds that are nearing. Watches her eyes in the glow of the night, watery with tears, the scent of relief rolling off her now. She whispers, “thank you,” presses her forehead to his, releases her grip on him and yells as loud as she can, “here! I’m here!”

Derek takes off. Running up the rocky face of a nearby cliff. Tilting his head to the side to listen. Listen as she calls out again, as the search party’s mood shifts from desperate to relieved. He hears her say, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” it’s soft, delicate, and honest. 

It’s all he needs. 

—————

He remembers something soft, delicate, and honest. He remembers it in the form of pale flesh speckled with the dark marks of human beauty. 

He remembers it. He remembers it until it aches. Until it tears at his seams and exposes the soft stuffing beneath the stitched hems of humanity. 

He remembers it. He remembers that it’s fickle. That it’s too easy to kill. A quiet, lonely death. Soft, delicate, and honest. Those things are rubbed down by time, by experience, by the world. The world will never stop killing soft, delicate, and honest things. 

—————

He finds that time moves differently as a wolf. It’s simpler. It’s easier to be alone. To be alone in the quiet, unassuming life of nature. Surrounded by things that want nothing more from him than respect.

—————

He doesn’t mean for it to become a thing. But it becomes a thing. Because Derek has always been good at attracting evil. Usually in the supernatural form. Lately it’s been in the human form. Or maybe it’s time and place kind of thing. Maybe when he covers so much distance and never stays in one place for long, maybe he just stumbles upon it.

He can scent evil. The unmistakable scent of evil. And he figures if he can identify it, he should do something about it. He wonders if one of humankind’s greatest weaknesses is the inability to identify and put down true evil. There are too many shades of grey in the human world. Too many laws, and innocent until proven guilty. Too many routes of rehabilitation. Too many bleeding hearts that think every form of sickness can be healed. 

Thing is, Derek can scent evil. Pure evil that cannot be cured. And he can do something about it. 

So he does.

—————

There’s a difference between incurable evil, the scent of cadaverine and the taste of pyridine; and someone who can be helped. Rehabilitated with some time and some money that they most likely won’t receive in prison but they can’t be on the street anymore. Derek cannot convince himself that it’s okay to rip the throat out of a human who smells like autoclaved blood cultures. Someone who still smells human under the heated and pressurized chamber that their life has become. 

The autoclaved blood cultures are the ones he’ll stake out for days. He’ll watch and he’ll scent until there’s a clear shift in direction. And a clear piece of information he can either call into the tip-line anonymously or he can drop at the station. Not really him though, he can’t drop it at the station. It’s one thing for a man to drop off key pieces of information in multiple criminal cases, it’s another thing for a wolf to show up on the doorstep of the local police departments, and it’s the easiest route to find a go-between. 

A go-between that has to be smart, sleek, resourceful, inconspicuous, act as a team, and understand Derek’s language. Understand Derek’s language. The only living thing that has ever understood Derek’s language is Stiles. And if Stiles was an animal, he’d be a crow. Intelligent, adaptable, quarrelsome, sometimes playful, puzzle-solvers who like to work in groups and share information within their murder. 

—————

It happens on the best days. The days when he can find a creek and a grove of maples. He can lie on his side and let the sun seep through his fur, warm his bones. Listen to the calm around him. It happens on the best days. And he still can’t stop thinking that one word. The one four letter word that’s been wrapped around his body, soul and silver-encased heart since the moment he burst into the loft with a traffic jam in his head and the scent of lemons in the air. 

It happens on the best days. Even on the best days. The days that his human can’t convince his wolf to stop whispering, ‘mate’.


	14. A Hot Summer Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a hot summer day.

A Hot Summer Day

It happens on a hot summer day. When Stiles finally, finally, finds the damn place. He swears he’s been here before, hundreds if not thousands of times. It all feels so familiar even if it doesn’t look it. 

It’s not very far away from Beacon Hills. The cabin is simple. The land is beautiful. The drive in is gravel and two-rut. The greens are green, so green that he can smell them clear as day without wolf senses to distinguish between each shade of summer. 

He parks a little ways back from the cabin. Thinking if Derek is actually home, he’d probably already hear him approaching anyway, but just so he can hold off as long as he can. Get himself acquainted with this strangely familiar place. Let himself ride out the zaps and pulses of nerves at just the thought of laying eyes on Derek again after all these years. In his mind, he’s always there. But in front of him, that’s a different story. 

The driveway leads to the back of the cabin. Stiles is only mildly surprised that there aren’t any traces of cars having been this way, there’s no garage on the property, nowhere to store a human mode of transportation. In the dust at his feet he can easily make out wolf prints and human prints. Most likely Cora’s prints are the smaller ones. 

When his heart thumps a little too hard for comfort, he finds himself reaching into his jeans pocket. Fingering the fidget ball. Deep breath, damp summer air invading his nostrils and clearing his head. He tilts back, watches the sky void of clouds. Lazy blue. The sound of leaves swaying in the breeze and a nearby slow rushing of water. It sounds like Stiles’ dreams some nights. Nights when his head is calm and his body is floating on clouds instead of trapped in the never-ending reel of anxiety, nightmares, and the every day stress that just comes with being an adult. 

Wildflowers with wide open faces staring up at the sky line the path towards the cabin. There are blackberry bushes with their thorns like a threat hidden behind velvety leaves that only appear innocuous. Raspberries starting to turn the red of ripe sweetness line the small porch on the backside of the structure. 

Another deep breath when his heart tries so suddenly to pound it’s way through his ribcage. An internal voice telling him it’s time, it’s okay, he can do this. No matter the outcome of seeing Derek after all these years. No matter his reason for showing up. Shit, he’s not even sure. Should he read him the riot act for helping him solve a bunch of cases? Should he arrest him for murder? Murder that no one could prove was done by a man who turns wolf when he wants to and rips the throats out of murderers, rapists, and child molesters. 

Further back. Should he confront him for being a coward back then? For leaving, giving chase at the first sign of danger. Well, not really the first sign of danger, that’s not true. Danger is the only reason they even met. 

Stiles closes his eyes, remembers the very first time he laid eyes on Derek. The thrill that chased up his spine, the chill he blamed on coming face to face with someone who’s entire family had been the topic of so much local legend that it couldn’t be ignored. Or maybe he could blame it on whatever was still running around in his body and brain from finally seeing a dead body in person. Finally sticking his nose in enough of his dad’s police business to get in on something interesting. 

Whatever he could blame it on back then it’s all bullshit now. Now when his eyes find the man his brain has been searching for in every nook and cranny for the last eight years. Craving his touch, his voice, his eye contact, his presence. His presence. It was always safe. Always. Even when Derek didn’t think it was. 

It’s all bullshit now. That thrill that races up his spine and gets chased back down with a rippling of a chill in the hot summer air. There’s one cause and one cause only for it.

It happens on a hot summer day. When Stiles shoves his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels and watches a graceful black wolf bounding over a rise in the forest. 

A tear burns in the back of his eye. Hoping to every recorded and unrecorded deity that Derek won’t catch his scent just yet. Because Derek, Derek in all his wolfy beauty and grace, Derek in all his bad-boy attitude and broodiness, Derek all tight jeans and leather, all danger and ‘anger is my anchor’, Derek all badass fighting skills and ‘I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth’. Yeah, that Derek. That Derek is chasing a butterfly. 

Derek is chasing a butterfly. 

Stiles can’t stop the smile that’s spreading on his face. The butterfly is winning it seems. When Derek leaps off a rock towards it, he falters and lands on his belly in the creek. His sigh can be heard from Stiles’ distance as he drops down to his side in the rushing water. Rolls onto his back and takes a moment to wriggle back and forth for a good scratching against a rock before he flops to his opposite side and groans. His paw rises to cover his face in a show of ‘I give up’ before he gets to his four feet, shakes off. Water droplets like small gems in the sun, sparking and throwing reflections through the grass where he’s stalked out of the water. He sits back on his haunches, back towards the cabin. Completely unaware of Stiles’ presence. 

He almost feels like he should announce his presence instead of standing here like a stalker. Gawking at a wolf that just took a bath. But for all the times Derek checked in on Stiles when he was sleeping and unaware of the broodywolf spying on him, well, then this just seems like turnabout’s fair play.

The butterfly hovers for a moment near Derek’s ear, practically taunting him. The wings are black with orange and white spots when closed. But when it lands on Derek’s nose and unfolds those wings, they’re iridescent green-blue with red spots. 

Okay, so Derek, and Stiles knows without a doubt that it is in fact Derek, because no one has ever made his body respond the way it is right now with just presence alone; Derek is sitting by a brook in the green grass on a hot summer day with a delicate blue butterfly perched on his nose. 

Now this, this is really something Stiles wants to take a picture of. But he left his phone in the Jeep. Figuring if it’s true, what Cora said about him spending more and more time in shift, then the static and buzz of electronics would be an invasion to his senses. 

So instead, he just takes it all in. The sights, the sounds, the feel of nature, the lull of it all. The feel of Derek so close. So close he can smell him on the breeze that’s wafting through the woods. Spilling the scent of wildflowers, greens, browns, and a fresh creek along with a wet wolf across the yard and into Stiles’ olfactory system.

Uncertain if it’s a force of nature or a feeling of deep calm, he finds himself taking a seat in the grass. Knees towards his chest, but relaxed, arms wrapped loosely around them. A deep breath and a center, a center he thought he’d never find again. 

This time when Derek groans and tips over, the butterfly flits off. And this time when he shakes water out of his fur, he starts shifting back to his man form. It’s still Derek. Graceful lines and muscles carved out of stone. Stiles isn’t sure which is more beautiful, if it’s even possible for one to be more beautiful than the other. Or if it’s even possible to distinguish between the two when they are one in the same.

Well, his naked body still has the same exact effect it had on him when he was seventeen. Averting his gaze before he’s caught redhanded staring at Derek’s incredible form. Stiles is aware of the his movements, tracking him from the corner of his eye, knowing he’s removing clothes from the conveniently placed clothesline. Pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

He’s also well aware that Derek has scented him by now. If the shift in the mood is any indicator, then he’s approaching slowly, acting unaffected by the surprise visitor who isn’t really a surprise since he’s the one who left the damn map knowing Stiles would follow it and find him even if the map was hand drawn and horrible. 

Stiles’ hand is in his pocket again, fingering the aluminum rings of the fidget ball when he bursts into the dialogue with, “you fucked me up Derek,” his voice shaking. He can feel Derek nearing, taking a seat beside him, close but not close enough to touch. And staying silent. There’s nothing heavy in the silence anymore, not like there used to be. The silence was filled with the ghosts of his family and his failures back then. Now, now it’s the silence of nature. Of wind through maple leaves and the constant babbling of a brook lazily flowing through his yard. 

There are at least a million things Stiles could say or should say, but nothing will rise aside from tears. Silent tears that are spilling over slowly. Evenly. And eventually it’s what makes Derek move. His hand appearing in the space between them, sliding a rough knuckle over Stiles’ cheek, stealing a tear in the indentation of his flesh and rubbing it along his lower lip. Which is maybe a little fucking weird, but Derek is a little fucking weird and it makes all the worries and all the years of resentment turn into mush inside Stiles’ body, warm and heavy, sinking down to the pit of his stomach and rolling away with the next deep breath. 

“I’m sorry,” and goddamnit he sounds the same too. 

Before Stiles even understands what’s happening, and he’s never really understood the things that happen when he’s around Derek if he’s being honest, his head is finding a place to hide in Derek’s neck. That perfectly delicate space between his strong jaw and his muscled shoulder. Derek’s arm is wrapping around his back, pulling him impossibly close, his hand like sparks of lightning where it meets Stiles' bare arm. His stubble roughly gentle when he turns his head, dragging it across Stiles’ temple and meeting flesh with a ghost of a kiss. 

“I’m sorry,” he says it again, just in case Stiles didn’t hear it the first time. His breath rising goosebumps on Stiles’ skin in the heat of summer. 

It happens on a hot summer day. It happens when Stiles agrees to stay for dinner. It happens when they end up sitting on the porch that overlooks the creek, sharing the last decade’s worth of stories. Or really, Stiles sharing nearly the last decade even though he gets a really strong impression that Derek already knows every single thing he talks about anyway. It feels good. It feels so good to be with someone he doesn’t need to impress, or act like someone he’s not. He doesn’t have to hide his fidgety hands, or stop himself from saying the awkward things that just seem to pour out of his mouth unless he focuses really hard on stopping them. And the things, the things he doesn’t have to say or do, but Derek already knows them. Knows them through his wolf scenting and his sneaky heartbeat listening and whatever other senses he can hone in on when they’re together. Even if Stiles did try to hide things, it would never work. 

It happens on a hot summer day, watching the orange orb of sun disappear through the trees. It happens when Derek smiles, a true smile, one that he’s only ever smiled at Stiles. It happens when Stiles’ heart skips its way right into his damn throat and he knows Derek can hear it, a flush rises under his dark stubble and he averts his eyes that are impossibly green in the last sliver of sunlight, with a silver vein charged through the right one and two silver veins chasing each other through the left one. It happens when Stiles can’t fucking stop himself any longer. When he has to touch, has to feel, has to taste. And he wonders how Derek has been willing down his wolf nature to nuzzle against him this whole time. 

It happens when Stiles gets up, stalks over trying to be all cool and calm but probably looking more like a flailing teenager again as he rushes over to duck into Derek’s lips. His first attempt is maybe a little too eager and he crashes Derek’s head back against the headrest of the wooden chair. Derek grunts out an amused sound, his hands sliding up the back of Stiles’ head, silently telling him to slow it down. Take it easy. They’ve got nothing but time now. 

It happens on a hot summer day. With the lingering heat dissipating into darkness and the sound of nature turning to night. With stars taking over in the sky and the moon a barely visible crescent ascending, it happens when Derek breaks the kiss. The kiss that has progressed to tongues searching desperately and finding. Finding what they’re looking for in each other. When he interrupts it to say, “it’s getting kind of late to drive home. There’s a guest room upstairs if you want it. It’s yours.”

Stiles gets the distinct impression that he means the room is his. Stiles’ room. Not a guest room. And he gets the distinct impression that he’s trying to be a gentleman, trying to slow it down this time, no one’s going to die a virgin sacrifice anymore and there’s still so much more, so much more to get through. Instead, with his nose still against Derek’s and the taste of his mouth lingering on his tongue, “I don’t want it. I want my side of your bed back.”

A soothing thumb slides across Stiles’ cheekbone, his eyes flash an electric blue and the silver veins throb like stars before a storm, “you’re sure?”

He doesn’t have to say it this time. Mate. He doesn’t have to explain it. He doesn’t have to spell it out in the only way Derek could ever know how, because, “yes. If I’ve ever been sure of anything in my whole damn life it’s you. You for the rest of it. Even though eventually we’ll have to figure out that whole werewolf age relative to human age thing because I don’t want to end up looking like some old saggy pervert with a thirty year old on my arm because I age and you don’t really. And look at you, holy Hell, Derek you don’t look anything different at all. Not that it’s really time for you to start looking old in human terms even if you were like twenty-one when I was seventeen and now you’d be twenty-nine it’s not like age really makes any mark for those years but you really look exactly the same. It is…” he’s cut off by Derek’s fingers indenting his skull and dragging him back down towards his lips. So that, “fascinating,” is muffled across the meeting point of their tongues. 

It happens on a hot summer day turning warm summer night. With an innocent kiss turning rabid. With traveling hands and ripping clothes. With desperation rising along every line of contact. With eight years of unspoken, ‘I missed you’, and ‘I love you’, and ‘I need you’. It happens with some stumbling through the cabin and the mattress finally meeting the back of Stiles’ legs and looks like Derek upgraded and finally got a bed frame and a box spring and, “this is ridiculously soft,” as Stiles falls back onto it. Derek quick to follow, leaning overtop him with a gentleness on his face that stills Stiles’ heart. 

Derek’s head ducks, instead of landing on Stiles’ lips like he anticipated, he nudges his way into Stiles’ neck and runs his face along his collarbone. Instinct forces Stiles to tilt, allowing Derek to trail over his throat with his nose, his lips and then his open mouthed kisses. Damn, he nearly forgot how that goes straight to every nerve in his body so that they all sing together in a soft rhythm that if he listened hard enough was always chanting ‘mate’. 

His mouth trails south instead of north and Stiles has no idea how he ever survived any of this overly sweet torture from those sinfully gentle lips when he was younger because as is, with eight more years of experience behind him, he’s already getting the distinct feeling welling in his belly that’s he’s going to lose his mind and his load before Derek even gets to the middle of the opening credits, “holy,” as his lips skim over the head of Stiles’ already painfully engorged dick, “all the things,” tongue flicking the tip as his lips close with a tight suction, “holy,” his hands still working on dragging Stiles’ boxers past his knees, “all the things holy Derek,” fingers in his hair maybe trying to pull him back or push him forward, Stiles isn’t even certain, “all the things holy,” he half shouts it this time when Derek’s hand caresses his thigh, fingers trailing towards his ass as his mouth sinks further down his cock, “Derek, come on, I can’t even, I’m a teenager again, fuck,” it tumbles out when his hips lift to let Derek’s lubed finger slide along the crack of his ass and settle for just a moment while the suction of his mouth intensifies before a finger slips inside Stiles. And, “damn it,” is the only hitched whispered warning he can even pretend to give as that finger arches and there goes his load. Yep, gone. His whole body twitching with a release more powerful than he’s felt in years and the bed is so comfortable and his bones are so mushy and his body is so full of tingles and zaps of pleasure and he’s down for the count folks. Elvis has left the building, “damn it Derek,” it’s half slurred, one finger still stimulating that overly sensitive spot. He’s released his dick with his mouth, but now his mouth is making the rounds on his thighs, his balls, and his nose is rubbing against the tissue paper thin skin in the hollow of his groin. 

That must be a snout-full on such a hot day. Damn. When the stars start to recede in Stiles’ eyelids, he blinks at the ceiling a few times to find his location on the face of this earth because he’s pretty sure he’s orbiting it right now. His hand slides over Derek’s shoulder, finding the handle of his jaw, fingertips to thin flesh, stubble, and rock hard jaw bone. Letting his fingers stay there as Derek shifts them, his hands on Stiles’ thighs gently demanding to fold himself in half so Derek can get his mouth where he wants it. 

He has an urge to tell Derek to use his words, but he’ll wait, this mood is pretty thick with eight years of yearning so yeah, sure, he’ll fold himself in half and take his knees to his face to get Derek’s mouth where he wants it. And damn, as soon as his tongue traces down the ridge of his balls and into the black hole of his body, well, it can’t really be a black hole since nothing can escape a black hole and that is the exact opposite of what an asshole is for, but it’s not like it can be a white hole either since nothing can enter a white hole even if energy and light can escape it. Whatever the hell it is, when his tongue circles and barges inside like he owns it, well, it punches a breath out of Stiles’ body in a moan he’s never heard himself make before. 

He desperately wants to tell Derek to skip this part, but he desperately wants it to continue all night. His fingers making dents in his own legs now, breath coming out in harsh gasps being driven by the motion of Derek’s tongue. He doesn’t even bother with Stiles’ cock that is in fact hardening again, since he’s apparently still a damn teenager or something, or Derek just really knows how to read every part of his body. Of course he knows how to read every part of his body and his mind, he can hear it all processing away, shit it’s a good thing he can’t actually hear the words on his thoughts since he’d never live down the fact that he has arguments with himself over what he can compare his asshole to in Space when he’s just supposed to be fully focused on Derek’s movements but if he focused solely on Derek then he’d be losing load number two before the second act and damn it, he really wants to get to the grand finale together. He’s pretty damn sure he’d not make a third load, but really, he’s not going to be surprised by anything his body does when it’s honed in on Derek. His mate. 

Yep, that’s what he’s going to introduce him as from here on out when he introduces him to people. It’d be amusing to see people wondering internally if he’s suddenly turned Australian when he announces with a slap to Derek’s back, ‘this is my mate Derek’. 

Stiles feels his lips turning up into a smile before Derek adds a finger to the torturously slow pleasuring session. Then the smile is interrupted by a gasp. 

“Okay?” Derek pauses to ask and Stiles wants to remind him that he’d know if it wasn’t, with all his wolf senses tuned into Stiles, he’d know before Stiles would.

But there’s the whole problem of not being able to breathe enough to speak more than grunted cut-off gasps, so, “yeah,” will suffice. But, “you really,” releasing his own thighs enough to reach for Derek’s face, “need to bring your mouth up here.”

Obedient bastard that he is, there’s no hesitation. Repositioning their bodies again so he can kiss his way up Stiles’ center, avoiding like hell the scar on his side from the witch's brand that someday they'll have to talk about, detouring to his nipples. One at a time as two fingers keep up the backdoor work. It takes about five years or five lives before Derek is finally resting over Stiles, his eyes flashing a burst of silver and blue when he whispers, “I love you.”

He’s not 1987A anymore. He’s not the Crab Nebula. He is Sirius. The brightest star in the night’s sky. A blue-white binary twenty-five times as luminous as the sun, “Alpha Canis Majoris,” Stiles hears himself whisper, “I love you too,” fingers putting the pressure on his chiseled from stone jaw to drag him back to his lips. Exactly where he belongs. 

It happens on a hot summer day. On a hot summer day fading to warm summer night. It happens with a stellar collision in Stiles’ eyelids as Derek’s lips close over his and he gently pushes himself inside Stiles’ body.


	15. A Starry Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens on a starry night.

A Starry Night

It happens on a starry night. It happens with Stiles’ legs wrapped around Derek’s hip, arms around his shoulders. Every part of him is filmed in sweat, salty droplets of skin on skin. The open window wafting the brook, the maples, fresh air so thick but it can’t do a thing to cover to the undeniable scent of Stiles. The undeniable scent that’s beckoning Derek to his neck. 

Leaving his lips when he knows Stiles is near orgasm again, incoherent babbling between kisses that have grown sloppy and lazy. Derek can feel it, hear it inside Stiles’ chest, every beat of his heart echoing, ‘mate’ as Derek nuzzles into the delicate flesh of his neck. Feeling his pulse against his lips, taking as much of his scent as he can. 

Derek’s hands slide up Stiles’ back, pulling him as close as possible towards his chest. The feeling of him, the heat of him, the hard hammering of his heart that’s rushing in his ears. Rushing in Derek’s ears. 

He takes a deep breath of the scent of him, letting it flow through every single corridor of his brain, letting it open all the closed passageways in his heart that have been so guarded for so long. Letting it all wind and unwind, feeling for the only time in his life, complete. He feels complete as Stiles’ entire body goes taut, a deep inhale that’s held when Derek thrusts slowly into him, holding him close and wishing he could never leave this place. 

When the breath Stiles was holding starts to pant out, Derek lets himself release, spots chasing swirls, flashing a painful burst of silver. He ducks his head into Stiles’ neck and stays there. Relaxing more of his weight over him, judging by the remaining grasp around Derek’s shoulders Stiles isn’t going to let him go anytime soon. 

Stiles’ face turns, leaning against the side of Derek’s head. Deep breath, the sweet scent of satisfaction, syrupy and thick, rolling off him in slow waves, “wow.”

Derek settles in, assuming he’s still the same kid he used to be, about to go on a rant about galaxies or supernovas or hell, maybe a horror film. He doesn’t sound like a traffic jam, and he doesn’t sound like the babbling brook and the wind through maples just yet either. He’s quiet for long enough that Derek would start to worry, that is, if he couldn’t already read everything about Stiles.

It’s when Derek moves that he finally speaks, “uh uh,” pressing his palms down on Derek’s shoulders.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re just not that heavy. And, I’m comfortable. You’re comfortable. So just stay until one of us isn’t.”

He tilts up to prop his head on his hand, elbow tucked in beside Stiles’ shoulder. The smile on his face is lazy, eyes glazed and half-closed, blinking lazily at Derek’s eyes for a long moment. A warm cup of cocoa. A soft sweater, “home.”

“Yeah, with a really cool moonroof.”

“Pretty sure it’s called a skylight when it’s in a house. A moonroof when it’s a vehicle,” he’s interrupted by a warm, long, skinny finger landing on his lips.

“It’s a moonroof when it’s an entire ceiling of windows over the bed of a werewolf. Do you even sleep here? It feels like this bed has never been used. Do you spend more time in shift? Are you even a werewolf anymore when you’re just a wolf whenever you want to be? Have you mixed and mingled with actual wolf packs or do they know the difference between you and them?”

Derek angles until he can suck the finger into his mouth, watching those gorgeous brown orbs getting wide, feeling his body respond, and surprise rise his brows.

“Well, I’m not going to say no.”

And Derek’s not going to say no either. Nosing his way down Stiles’ neck, chest, splattered with the last release. Earthy and pungent, musky and Stiles. So much Stiles. 

——————

It happens on a starry night when Derek finally slides his body behind Stiles’, wraps his arms around him and his face accidentally lands in a scar. A scar. A scar that Derek’s carelessness caused. One that he never saw. One that’s been there, on this pale, clean canvas, for eight years now. One that rises regret, clouds his eyes with tears, his chest with pain. 

It happens on a starry night. When Derek’s lips, slippery with shed tears, land on that scar. Pressing salt and liquid against the satin. When Stiles stays quiet. When his breath is calm and his scent is lavender and vanilla. When he’s not asleep but he’s not quite awake either. 

It happens when his hand, his beautiful fingers land on Derek’s jaw, pressing swirled tips into his stubble, when his face turns and Derek’s instinct to nuzzle can’t be fought. It happens on a starry night. When there are no spoken apologies for the last decade. When everything they could possibly say to one another is spoken through lips on flesh, tight embraces, and tears clinging to dark lashes. 

——————

It happens on a starry night that turns into a gentle morning. The bright warmth of the sun’s fingers chasing away the last of the stars, lighting up the day to brilliant yellows and oranges that splash across the pale, lean mass of Stiles sprawled out beside Derek. It happens when Derek’s finger rises, slides over the burn scar on his abdomen and his sleeping face twitches into something like a smile before his eyes flit open and the wake face is full smile. A long stretch giving Derek’s eyes full access to the perfection of his form. It happens when Derek watches him yawn, roll over, toss an arm over Derek and fall that easily back into sleep. It happens then, when Derek realizes that every single moment that has led to this, something so simple, something so intimate, something so much like, “home,” and, “mate,”; every single moment that led to this was worth it. 

It happens then. With the steady beat of his mate’s heart beside him. In their home. With so much behind them and so much ahead of them. 

It happens then. With Derek’s nose in Stiles’ hair. With his familiar scent and his familiar feel. 

It happens then. With Derek’s heart beating a terribly soft rhythm against his ribs. His ribs where Stiles has fallen back into the sound of a babbling brook and wind through maple leaves. 

It happens then. And Derek knows it, he knows it’ll happen every morning for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snip, snap, snout this tale is told out! Thanks friends :) I know I left a few things open ended but I felt like carrying on with the theme of 'it happens on' would get to be too much quickly if I kept going. 
> 
> I'm thinking of another world for these two - something a little domestic that'll allow for more play in the characters. I might bring the silver veins over there, and get a little further into the lasting physical effects of the vampire bird on Stiles. But it'll be different enough that that world won't need this one, just recurring bad guys. 
> 
> If you're here, then thanks for coming along, and hit that little kudos button before you leave! Take care of yourselves friends :)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments appreciated! Mindless negativity can be brought elsewhere :)


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